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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 



In Africa, Asia and Europe 



GuLiAN Lansing Morrill 



'^X ^ ILLUSTRATED 



MINNEAPOLIS 
1 902 



jTheubrary 
congress, 

5 Two Copies Received 

5yL. Vi 1902 

COPYRIQHT ENTRY 

^LASS <2^Xo. NO, 



Copyright, 1902, 
By G. L. Morrill 



ttA^ 






MINNESOTA BLANK BOOK CO. 
MINNEAPOLIS 






To My Mother 



FOREWORD. 

I have been told that the gulls which follow 
ships as they cross the Atlantic are the ghosts 
of travelers doomed to expiate the innumerable 
lies which they have told on their return home. 
"Haec fabula docet." But I'll not preach and 
this moral has no story. If this book is as prosy 
as a sermon the reader is at liberty to do as he 
did when I occupied the pulpit — nod with Homer 
and wake up with the benediction — after the col- 
lection. 

G. L. M. 

Minneapolis, May 1902. 



LIST OF ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Portrait Frontispiece. ''^ 

The Wanderings of the Tenderfoot (Map) . 4 - 

Funchal Cathedral 16 ^ 

Street Scene in Algiers 3^ -' 

Listening to the Sphinx 48 

Climbing Cheops 64 >/ 

Crossing the Jordan 80 

The Author in Oriental Garb 96 - 

Shechem and Mount Ebal 112 ^ 

Ruins at Ephesus 128 "^ 

Tower of Constantine 144 "' 

Reading Paul's Sermon on Mars Hill 160 ^ 

Theatre of Bacchus 176 

Feeding Pigeons at St. Marks 192 

Landau Harbor, Switzerland. 224 - 

Holland Windmills 256 -^ 

French Peasant Girl 288 '^ 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. On Shipboard 1 1 

II. Madeira i8 

III. A Day at Gibraltar 29 

IV. Algiers— The Beautiful 35 

V. Quaint Old Malta 42 

VI. In Hoary Old Egypt 49 

VII. Rambling in Egypt 64 

VIII. The Holy City 83 

IX. Scenes in Samaria 96 

X. Galilee and Its Sacred Reminiscence. .114 
XL Three Cities of the Orient 126 

XII. In the Sultan's City 136 

XIII. Greece and Mars Hill 151 

XIV. Naples and Vesuvius 168 

XV. The Eternal City 176 

XVI. In Wonderful Florence 192 

XVII. Pisa, Genoa and Milan 202 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII. Venice— The White Phantomed City. 211 

XIX. Granite Masterpieces of Switzerland. 220 

XX. Famed Cities of Germany 234 

XXI. Leipzig, Frankfort, The Rhine 248 

XXII. The Lowlands— Holland and Belgium 258 

XXIII. From Nice to Monaco 271 

XXIV. Paris and the Parisians 278 

XXV. The Last of France 285 

XXVI. London and Its Sights 304 

XXVII. Historic Spots of England 318 

XXVIII. Good Old Yankeeland 327 



TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 



CHAPTER I. 

ON SHIPBOARD 

Our ship was like a chained leviathan panting 
to be free in the sea for which she was made. 
Hundreds of friends of passengers came to say 
"Bon voyage." One woman in particular of star- 
board length and portly width remarked, "How 
I hate a crowd," and proceeded to prove it by 
shipping herself between me and the foregang- 
way. Later she was the "Girl I left behind me." 
It was a cold, raw morning. The decks were 
crowded. "All visitors ashore" at last rang out 
on the frosty air, chilling the flowers which had 
been brought, but not the prayers or tears of 
those who knew a love which neither time nor 
shock could weaken or destroy. The hawsers 
were cast off; the tug boats pulled us around; 
the pilot boat came along side ; the pilot climbed 
our ladder; and steered us toward the open sea 
so wide, so deep, so' long and left us. Tenny- 
son's thought was ours. 



12 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

For though from out this bourne of time and place 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face, 

When I have crossed the bar. 

Figures are deceiving, but try to imagine our 
ship of twelve thousand tons burden; five -hun- 
dred and seventy-five feet in length; masts one 
hundred and twenty-five feet from the upper 
deck; and the whole ably manned from Captain 
McAuley on the bridge, tO' the stokers in the 
hold feeding one hundred and thirty-six fires 
with one hundred and eighty tons of coal per 
day. The New England was the largest passen- 
ger boat floated in the Mediterranean sea; to say 
nothing of the passengers' size, three hundred 
and five woman and two hundred and twenty 
men, some of whom were the biggest and best 
one could possibly meet with on land or sea. 

What Irving says in his "To an American vis- 
iting Europe the long voyage he has to make is 
an excellent preparative," I question. If you 
are well you are prepared to eat and drink 
and may be merry all the day long in walking, 
talking, reading, smoking, writing, studying, 
playing cards, dressing, flirting, playing piano, 
singing, listening tO' orchestra, napping, boasting 
how much your friends think of you and you of 
them, or planning how to do the city without 
being "done up" by some infamous interpreter, 



ON SHIPBOARD. 13 

heartless hack driver or swindling shopkeeper 
whose knowledge of Scripture is limited to "I 
was a stranger and they took me in." 

If you are sick you will feel like giving up 
all you hold dear except your hold on the side 
of the bunk, which you tighten as the ship rolls 
and pitches, thanking the builder that the state 
room is no larger for you to be banged and 
bounced around in; while at lucid and quiet in- 
tervals you wonder what idiot wrote "Life on the 
Ocean Wave." "Oh my," I said and groaned, 
while my Christian Science friend said: "Sea 
sickness is a delusion!" But "can such (imagi- 
nary) things be and overcome us like a summer 
cloud and not excite our special wonder?" 

Scene on Deck, 5 p. m. — Husband to wife : 
"Well, I think we had better dress for dinner." 
Wife: "I don't feel Hke it, but I suppose we 
had." 

Same people in the saloon at 5 -.^o ; lady in silk 
and laces, gentlemen in tuxedo. At 5 -.^S lady 
is leaving saloon in a hurry ; at 5 :45 the gentle- 
man does ditto. 

Moral : Be sure of your dinner rather than 
of your dress. 

Count Mai de Mer is no respector of persons. 
He will take a young belle and wring her until 
she looks old and worn and her voice is thin and 



14 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

cracked, while the dear old body whom your 
heart called "mother" and for whom you feared, 
is always on deck for a walk and ready for three 
sittings in the dining-room per diem. There are 
remedies for sea sickness but the best one I am 
inclined to believe is death. The preventives 
are many and expensive ; powders, pills and hum- 
ble diet. The cures more so; bromides, lemons, 
and phosphates, even to placing a newspaper on 
your chest and lying down right away. I had a 
downright lying paper with me and it did very 
well for everything but the thing it was pre- 
scribed for. Let me not be misunderstood. I 
was not very sea sick. I just felt bad enough to 
want to be real sick for a change ; and the monot- 
ony was not relieved for three days. I wasn't 
like the man who wanted to die but couldn't, and 
then was afraid to. I just hated myself and be- 
tween the acts of the comedy of dressing myself 
in sections and lying down, wished I had an au- 
ger long enough to bore through to the keel and 
sink all on board. 

The animals on shipboard enjoyed the passage 
very much. In our menagerie I saw a Baer, 
Bull, and Wolf. Later I met a Fish in the swim 
and a Swan on the water. We had Frost 
and Snow on leaving Boston, and bright Stars 
visible day and night. Let the great dramatist 



ON SHIPBOARD. 15 

ask now, if he pleases, "What's in a name?" and 
take the above for an answer. 

One must be a "good mixer" to make friendly 
progress on shipboard. It is not so much who 
your father was, or where you studied or how 
big your bank account is, but what can you do 
to please the crowd? 

At the dinner table fruits and nuts were served 
in great abundance. Among them these chest- 
nuts were passed around ; "Why are the passen- 
gers of the New England like a party going to 
a comic opera?" "Because they are going to 
Fun-call." "Why should all bachelors on board 
get a wife before they return?" "Because they 
are going to the Maid-era." 

Time was ours in large quantities. No papers 
to read or letters to answer, 'phones to ring up 
or calls to look after, sermons to prepare or 
preach or listen to. Clock hands give way 
to bell tongues which ring out the hours ; four 
hours making a watch (and unmaking every 
timepiece half an hour a day) until we are driven 
to desperation. Six watches in twenty-four 
hours; at 12:30, one; at i, two; and so on until 
when 4 :oo comes it rings eight. Easy isn't it ? 

My friends knew the piano was my forte and 
mathematics my foible, so I learned to keep up 
with the times by dividing the number of bells 



i6 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

by two, which gave me the hour if I could re- 
member what it was by the "watch." 

"The hell of waters, how they howl and hiss !" 
A stormy sea gives us a new scripture. Dr. Duff, 
the good missionary, had often read Psalm cvii., 
23-31 on land, but when the "Lady Holland" 
struck the Cape of Good Hope bar and was 
wrecked, he found the "Traveler's Psalm" a very 
different thing. We had no big storm and the 
foolish passenger who wanted one was not grati- 
fied; but we were at the look the captain gave 
him. There had been one the day before and 
so we got the ground swell of it. Our big ship 
was the sport of the whistling wind and the sav- 
age waves that rolled and rearing themselves 
thirty feet in the air, washed the upper dack and 
bridge. This led the captain to send word that 
there was danger for us who stood in the bow, 
and we had better come aft or go below, so we 
accordingly acted upon the hint. Neptune 
calmed himself somewhat, but we were restless. 
Our sea legs struck strange attitudes ; our bodies 
various angles ; we stood not upon the order of 
our introduction or going out or going in, but 
embraced each other without leave or leaving and 
just held on. One lurch of the ship sent twenty 
steamer chairs sliding down the deck and their 
occupants into the scuppers; the fruit, cracker 




FUNCHAL CATHEDRAI, 



ON SHIPBOARD. 17 

and beef tea lunch into each other's arms and 
faces. An elderly lady struck the rail which re- 
sulted in a bruised forehead and blackened eyes. 
A man lost his balance, upset his wife, clasped 
another woman and heard his partner shriek, "I 
think you might hug me instead." Mrs. Lucian 
Swift strewed shawl, books, Journal, pen and a 
two-pound box of fine candy over the deck; while 
Mr. W.B. Chandler, the genial "Soo" Line agent, 
fell on his knees to a strange lady and laid his 
head in her lap. 

"O Temporal O Moses!" Let the Hght go 
out on this dark picture. An hour after I went 
to dinner and the dinner went after me in spite 
of table racks ; the ship lurched, waiters lost their 
balance, and the whole table d'hote took a tum- 
ble in my lap. I always was a lucky dog and this 
was an added proof. "Everything comes my 
way." 

Seriously, the sea's "wide waste of weltering 
water" is a sublime sight in what it is or seems 
or does. Byron's matchless Apostrophe is but 
"moonlight to sunlight" compared with itself. 
Leaning over the rail looking at the phosphores- 
cent gleam, the curling foam, or the greenish blue 
wake, I recalled and repeated his "dark, deep, 
blue ocean; boundless, endless sublime" with 
•new and never before dreamed of feeling. To 



i8 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

think that the great God holds it as a drop in 
the hollow of His hand and it is the symbol of 
His mercy in its "wideness." 

Through the black and bright, from time of 
evening till "jocund day stands tip toe on the 
misty mountain tops," let this wonderful work 
declare to the children of men, "weeping may en- 
dure for a night, but joy cometh in the morn- 
ing." 



CHAPTER n. 
MADEIRA. 

The Madeiras belong to Portugal, but I claim 
them by right of discovery. The islands have an 
undulating appearance like the crest of a serpent 
and rise in places from four to six thousand feet. 
Hills and valleys are covered with violet and 
purple vines, little villages nestle like flocks on 
the hillside, and stray huts like lost lambs are 
found here and there. Madeira means "wood," 
and once the island was heavy with timber, but 
some George came here with his little hatchet 
and got in his deadly work for building material 
or a match factory. 

Early history refers to a big match affair here 



MADEIRA. ig 

between Robert Machim and Anna d'Arfet, 
whose thoughts lightly turned to love. They 
promised to leave their happy homes for each 
other and eloped from England to France in 
1346. They were pursued by the storm of papa's 
boot and Neptune's blow, which took them out 
of their course and landed them at a spot called 
Mochico in memory of their devotion. You may 
dilute this story with sea water, for history, like 
character, is often doubtful and deceitful. For 
instance, what of Napoleon, who was brought to 
Madeira on his way to St. Helena, or of Christo- 
pher Columbus, who came to Porto Santo, stu- 
died navigation, and married the daughter of 
Governor Ferestrello? We have discovered that 
he did not discover America, and did do some 
other things which would not make good read- 
ing in Sunday school libraries. 

Funchal is the capital of Madeira. It lies on a 
curving shore; white houses called "quintas," 
with terraced gardens, surrounded by vineyards 
and patches of sugar-cane, beautify the slopes. 

A small fort. Loo Rock, close to shore, guards 
the bay, and on the hill behind the city there is a 
formidable fortress which thundered a salute to 
us after we had raised the Stars and Stripes and 
English Jack. 

We dropped anchor in the open roadstead 



20 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

and "dropped" it was, for the cable broke when 
three hundred and sixty feet had been let out 
before bottom had been reached. The officers 
showed a warmth of feeling which made it nec- 
essary for the health officer to board the ship 
and ask what the matter was. 

The natives are of Portuguese descent, with a 
mixture of negro and Moorish blood. They 
stretched hands across the sea which threatened 
to overturn their canoes, and tried to sell us 
lace, parrots, wickerwork and jewelry. They 
held out umbrellas to catch the coin which we 
threw them or dived out into the deep water for 
other pieces, which never got away from them. 

On shore the men wore a skin-tight fitting 
trouser which came to their knees, a coarse 
shirt covered by a short jacket, rough yellow 
boots, and a little cap of blue cloth, called "cara- 
puca," shaped like a funnel with a pipe on top, 
through which we tried to convey a few ideas. 
The women were polite, some pretty and young 
and some pretty old. They dressed in a gay 
looking gown of some native material and a cape 
of red or blue wool cloth. 

But I wanted to see a man, and I had a letter 
of introduction to him from my friends in 
Owensboro who had been his early playmates in 
the old town. This gentleman was the Hon. 



MADEIRA. ai 

Tom Jones, our American consul, and when I 
say he was a true Kentuckian, the world under- 
stands he was the soul of chivalry, courage and 
companionship. 

He asked me if I would take a ride. I said 
"Yes," and he ordered a bull-cart, for Funchal is 
the place of the horseless carriage and was even 
then negotiating for wireless telegraphy, motion- 
less messenger boys and speechless banquets. A 
bull-cart is a kind of car, built on runners, cur- 
tained and made to hold four people, and drawn 
by oxen which your driver prods and curses as 
he trots by your side, placing a greasy rag in 
front of the runners so that they may slide eas- 
ily. When you want a dififerent ride you climb 
into a hammock, made of strong canvas fastened 
to a long pole carried by two men. Instead of a 
wheelbarrow or truck, laborers carry heavy bur- 
dens on their heads, which develops a kind of 
bull-neck and makes them head strong, as we 
soon learned. 

I found the streets narrow and clean, paved 
with small round stones. There are no side- 
walks; you keep in the "middle of the road." 
Two public walks, with trees, invite a promen- 
ade, and in spring time streams run down the 
hills and flow across the town in deep channels. 

The stores are small. I bought a silver ring, 



23 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

two bulls and a cart. No window display at- 
tracts and bargain counters are unknown. Mar- 
kets offer poor meat, fresh fish, and vegetables. 
These, with salt herring and cod, are the leading 
articles of diet. The dwellings have their ground 
floor windows fitted with iron bars which give 
them a jail-like appearance. The houses are 
painted white, with green latticed blinds. Rich 
people have larger houses. My friend, Ladd, was 
attracted to one, met the lady, and with gesture 
and speech said, "Beautiful, I look around 
here?" To which she replied, "Certainly, sir; 
you are very welcome." She was the English- 
speaking wife of a Portuguese merchant. He 
was invited in, shown the furnishings, and asked 
to remain and dine with the husband, whose ap- 
pearance wa's soon expected. 

The town has a fine public garden, with plants 
and flowers and a band-stand where an excellent 
orchestra furnishes free music in the afternoon. 
I saw a large hospital built by the late Empress 
of Brazil for the care of consumptives of Brazil- 
ian or Portuguese birth. Many things were 
foreign in name and arrangement, for instance, 
the proprietor's name, "Jesus," in big letters 
over the door and gate entrances into paved ves- 
tibules from which a double flight of stairs lead 
to the main room above. 



MADEIRA. 23 

For pleasure, the people go on an excursion 
by bull-cart, or climb the mountain and descend 
in a basket sledge on the principal of a toboggan 
slide. There is a Portuguese club house with 
card, billiard and ball rooms ,and an English club 
house, overlooking th*? sea. The theater is large 
and finely decorated. The Casino Hotel is built 
on the site of the house Columbus once occupied. 
I visited it by night. The gardens were artistic- 
ally laid out, lights gleamed like stars overhead, 
while within the building men and women were 
engaged in playing faro and roulette. A bru- 
nette came and said, "Welcome; have some cake 
and wine," after which she added, "Will you not 
play?" I said, "Certainly," left her, and sat down 
to the piano, to her surprise. 

A prominent object is the governor's castle- 
like residence. The city is governed by a presi- 
dent and council of seven. Revenue comes from 
a tax on imported grain and salt; on fresh fish 
and meat sold in the open market; on the wine 
that is exported, the houses occupied, and the 
merchants carrying on trade. Expense for pub- 
lic improvements and care of the town cannot be 
very much, and there is a chance for the mi- 
crobe graft to pursue its dishonest career. 

The natives are rich with a poor man's wealth. 
In this tropical climate the real house plants 



24 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

are children, and they are very many. The law 
says they shall go to school; some did, but I'm 
sure more were down to meet us. But school 
without "hookey" is Hke ham without an omelet. 
I always regret that 'mid all my youthful joy of 
study I missed the pleasure of playing truant. 

Roman Catholicism is the established form of 
religion. The bishop is at the head of the clergy 
and his cathedral is at Funchal. Years ago Pro- 
testants were regarded as heretics, they had a 
hard time in life, and at death were taken out for 
burial at sea, but other beliefs are now tolerated. 
The wine trade brought the British merchants, 
they erected a church and have a resident chap- 
lin who conducts the Episcopal service. The 
Presbyterians followed their example, built a 
church and stand in their faith for the Free 
Church of Scotland. On my return from the old 
cathedral, with its cedar roof, red and gold, 
Moorish style and silver ornaments, I met a 
funeral procession. The body was carried on the 
shoulders of four bearers; the priests marched 
in front with open book, chanting the service, 
while relatives and mourners followed behind. 
Here, as elsewhere, there is no land one can visit 
where the dark shadow of the grave does not 
fall on the hearth and heart of man. 

We had delightful weather. The city is a 



MADEIRA. 25 

sanitary resort; the mean annual temperature is 
66 degrees and sick and tired people come here 
to find the climate mild in summer and winter, 
day and night. In such an atmosphere there are 
innumerable insects, many moths, and nearly a 
thousand varieties of beetles. One finds a few 
lizards and turtles. Young Isaac Waltons go 
out and find choice of several hundred kinds of 
fish. When it comes to botany, the vegetation 
is like southern Europe. 

The island shows volcanic formation and ac- 
tion. Lagoa, to the east, has a crater five hun- 
dred feet in diameter and one hundred and fifty 
feet deep. 

Virgil's "Bucolics" were not inspired by this 
country. The people generally rent the land but 
own the house, walls and trees, paying their 
rental by a per cent of the produce raised. Hired 
men are not needed, for man and wife are literal 
"helpmeets." Farming implements are old-fash- 
ioned affairs. In absence of meadows, the cattle 
are fed in the stalls when they are not out in 
the mountains. Oxen furnish power and the 
horse is as rare as the Dodo bird. Water is 
scarce, comes through courses built of masonry, 
or driven through rock tunnels and has a mar- 
ketable value. 

The people were very sweet to us, for sugar 



26 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

is one of their staple articles. A long time ago 
some one brought the cane from Sicily. It may 
have been an Evil Spirit, for the people have 
been "Raising Cain" ever since, making a kind 
of fire-water from a distillation of the thick juice 
after extracting the sugar. They further grow 
wheat, barley, Indian corn, good common vege- 
tables, poor apples, pears and peaches, lemons, 
oranges, guavas, figs, bananas, pineapples, and 
a custard apple that melts into the remembrance 
of pies "like mother used to make." They raise 
a little tobacco from which they make atrocious 
cigars. A few date palms, more picturesque than 
palatable, are found on the hill sides, and the 
upper hills are full of Spanish chestnuts which 
form a big item of food for the poor. 

Some of the natives make coarse linen articles, 
and boots and shoes for their own use. The girls 
do a lot of needlework and embroidery, while 
the old women make wicker-work baskets and 
chairs from the osiers which gfow in the ra- 
vines. One of our lady touristi. bought a chair 
which proved to be a kind of white elephant on 
her hands and under our feet, for it was always 
on deck and as unmanageable as Victor Hugo's 
cannon. 

I went to a local bank where English mer- 
chants cash your bills and checks for a consid- 



MADEIRA. 2? 

eration of something more than friendly interest. 
The people have the French decimal system, a 
kind of visionary "reis" cohi, which makes your 
calculations crazy. Four thousand five hundred 
equal a pound sterling, and one thousand make 
a mil-re or dollar, equal to four shillings and five 
and one-third pence. I was compelled to go to 
the postoffice. I wanted some postal cards and 
stamps for a collection I intended to make. I 
offered my money and the clerk said, "Fifty reis 
for one-half dozen." I thought he had raised 
the price, but I paid the money and staggered 
to the cable office to wire my family I had 
reached Madeira in safety and was doing as well 
as could be expected. 

The word Madeira is a synonym for wine. The 
vine was brought here from Crete as early as 
the i6th century. The peasants cultivate it on 
their little patches of land; the merchant buys the 
"must" from the press, takes it to his store, 
where he ferments and treats it until it is fit for 
market. The famous Madeira wine is made from 
a mixture of black and white grapes, which are 
also made separately into wines called "Tinta" 
and "Verdelho." My friend, Consul Jones, in- 
sisted that I should dine with him at Reid's new 
hotel. It is built on the margin of a cliff, one 
hundred feet above the blue water, and offers 



28 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

a fine view of shore, mountain and sea. I was 
introduced to the proprietor and sat down to a 
big banquet. To my left there was a sweet, old 
English lady from London who divided her talk 
between good Queen Victoria and the bad In- 
dians in the Rocky Mountains. She was in fine 
spirits and not less so when a bottle of Madeira 
of the vintage of i860 was opened and a toast 
was drunk to the success of the "Innocents 
Abroad." 

May not Madeira be spelled Mad- 
era? Paul told Timothy, "Use a little wine for 
thine often infirmities," but history proves that 
much wine makes bad medicine. If it is true 
that "In the trembling hand of a drunkard every 
crimson drop that glowed in the cup is crushed 
from the roses that once bloomed on the cheeks 
of some helpless woman," then we must con- 
clude, "O, thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou 
hast no name to be known by, let us call thee 
'devil.' " 

It was midnight when we left Funchal. The 
moon veiled herself like a nun and entered her 
chapel, lit by stars, and I drifted "gently down 
the tides of sleep." 



A DAY AT GIBRALTAR. 29 

CHAPTER III. 
A DAY AT GIBRALTAR. 

We entered Gibraltar strait, — it's about thirty- 
six miles long with much varying width — and 
sighted Tarifa on the coast of Spain, with Africa 
only nine miles away. Tarifa was too unimport- 
ant to visit with more than a glance through our 
glass, but the word is associated with something 
all good citizens are interested in, and tourists 
especially on their return home, and that is "tar- 
iff" ; a rate of duty leveled on all things imported. 
It was the custom of these Barbary pirates who 
built a castle at Tarifa, to force toll nolens volens 
from every vessel that passed by. 

Gibraltar welcomed us with torpedo and war 
vessels, and a steam tender on which an officious 
foreigner informed us that "kodak machines 
were not allowed on land." But that was just the 
place for a kodak ; so while an officer at the wharf 
confiscated a reverend Father's photographic out- 
fit, my simple-looking machine was smuggled in 
a passenger's shawl and later brought back to 
the ship in a basket of lemons and oranges which 
I purchased on shore. 

Of course, I took a few pictures on the sly, as 
it was a good year for Americans abroad, and 



3<3 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

our relation was so cordial with England in a 
brotherly "alliance," that I could not be denied 
the privilege of freedom of an American cousin 
and ardent admirer of good old England. 
What were a few snap shots, anyway, when they 
were shooting all the time in Africa, and at that 
very minute were snapping their fingers at Oom 
Paul? 

Gibraltar is more than a "gob of mud on the 
end of a stick." If you are mathematical you 
will be interested in knowing that it is a pro- 
montory three by seven miles, whose great- 
est height is One thousand four hundred 
feet. If mythological, that, with Ceuta, on 
the African coast, it formed the Pillars of 
Hercules, west of which nothing was supposed 
to exist but chaos and darkness. If historical, 
that it was called Gebel Tarik, from the Moorish 
conqueror who came there in 711 A. D,, since 
which time the game of war has been played with 
varying fortune by the Christian, Moor, British, 
Dutch, Spanish and French, until the spirit of 
Sir Gilbert Eliott prevailed; a spirit which star- 
vation, sickness and shot could not down, so that 
England has retained Gibraltar as her possession, 
though Spain is said to regard the rock as only 
"temporarily" under a foreign flag. A flat, 
sandy isthmus joins the rock with the mainland. 



A DAY AT GIBRALTAR. 31 

The rock is honeycombed with galleries, in which 
are formidable-looking guns, and, with battery 
and bastion, make it almost invincible. 

We entered the rock gallery near the old 
Moorish Castle, built in 725 A. D., and splendidly 
preserved. Walks, walls, ivy, moss, fern and 
flower lured us up and on, till we were in a 
Mammoth Cave, from whose embrasures we saw 
a most magnificent panorama. To the East lay 
the blue Mediterranean; to the West, the snow- 
mantled hills of Granada ; and near us, the Span- 
ish mainland. On this side of the Neutral Line 
was a race course, rifle range, two large ceme- 
teries, great cattle sheds, and the Devil's Tower, 
whose strange stories make one feel a little like 
Tam O'Shanter when he and Meg had such a 
fine time; while just beyond this dead line was 
the Spanish town of Linea, with its bull ring and 
everything to match. 

We did not have time to climb the stony stair- 
case that led to Queen Isabella's chair, and so 
made a "bee line" over to Linea in Spain, along a 
road sentineled by fierce mustachioed soldiers, 
thronged by workingmen and women, beggars to 
boot, and some others putting tobacco in their 
boots and stockings to smuggle through the cus- 
tom-house; a custom in principle, I understand, 
practiced by some Americans on their return 



32 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

home, when the word "duty," which they had al- 
most forgotten suddenly confronts them. The 
town was one of the worst (I hope) in Spain, 
and a short sight-seeing made us glad to leave 
its dirt, rags, drunkenness and general deviltry. 
A little ragmuffin scanned our company and, 
making a thumb and nose gesture, said, "Ameri- 
cans no good." 

Returning, we climbed from the King's bas- 
tion to the Alameda esplanade, where there is a 
beautiful garden in which the military band plays, 
and there, as everywhere, people bent on pleasure 
showed their wealth and dress by promenading 
up and down. 

A W. C. T. U. sign woke familiar associations. 
We wished it well and passed on mid a throng 
of black-eyed women, pale and half-blind children 
who cried "adios" and "good-by" for tlie coppers 
we tossed them. 

A little later we met a different kind of greet- 
ing. It was from a flushed faced little woman who 
had missed her husband in the crowd and met 
him with a private party. She looked much, but 
only said, "Well I'm provoked at you," and he 
coolly replied, "Well, my dear, go up on the for- 
tifications and you will feel better." It was only 
a war of words and there was no grave danger 
for the American consul, John Sprague, was 




STREET SCENE IN ALGIERS 



A DAY AT GIBRALTAR. 33 

near by for the protection of defenseless Ameri- 
cans as he and his father had been for forty-five 
years. 

We drove along the water's edge to 
Europa Point, showing fortifications, barracks, 
patches of green, splashes of blue, and a 
fine lighthouse which has taken the place of 
the votive lamp the Spanairds dedicated to 
la Virgen de Europa. The governor's 
summer residence is around the point, beyond 
which is the "Thus-far-shalt-thou-go-and-no- 
farther" of the rock rising perpendicularly from 
the sea. 'Mid all this rock there is something re- 
lenting — all is not stony any more than in a hu- 
man soul. In nook and cranny were patches of 
soil cultivated by the growth of trees, shrubs 
and flowers. Wild olive, acanthus — and another 
"wild" plant from which our French friends 
make a drink called absinthe — grow in profusion 
and festoon the hard angles dressing the bare 
stone with a beauty you observe at the harbor 
and fall in love with as you walk or ride over the 
rugged sides. 

In stormy weather the "live thunder" may leap 
from peak to peak, but on the summer day's visit 
we saw Barbary apes jumping on the ledges and 
running among the rocks. They are protected 
by law from the arms of their murderous broth- 



34 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

ers ; and as the only apes in Europe, looked with 
wonderment upon the antics of their descend- 
ants we wondered what they thought. 

Bright British soldiers were much in evidence 
and the Cameron Highlanders were a splendid 
set of fellows. Although finely equipped, they 
seemed to me to be the targets for murderous bul- 
lets, or for more deadly assaults of "Wine, women 
and song" which lay in wait for their money and 
morals. I noticed an "ad" for a masked ball for 
the war in Africa and listened to a beaming Brit- 
on sing, "The Absent-Minded Beggar." That 
night I heard two English civilians talking about 
Buller's retreat. One of them remarked : "I 
guess we'd better pack up and go home." 

In absence of newspapers, almost as necessary 
to life as air to lungs, I learned one theory about 
the late Cecil Rhodes : "The British empire 
wanted an unbroken dominion in which to run a 
railroad from Cairo to Cape, and had a right to 
take what it pleased in this world; the English 
will govern the Boers better than they will gov- 
ern themselves ; trade and money ought to be 
more to 'progressive' people than the old fogy 
words of liberty and self-government. Eng- 
land's creed can be summed up in the famous 
old resolution : 'Resolved, That the earth is the 
Lord's and He has given it to His saints. Re- 



ALGIERS— THE BEAUTIFUL. 35 

solved, That we are the saints ; therefore we 
will drive out the non-progressive Boers and take 
possession of their gold mines.' " 

I have an acquaintance, a church member who 
took extra insurance on his life before sailing and 
was resigned to the future. In case of death at 
sea, he simply requested to be buried at Gibral- 
tar; in Africa, at the base of one of the pyra- 
mids ; or in Europe, at Westminster abbey, and 
expected his friends to come and visit him. 

I heard a band. I saw a crowd. What did it 
mean? "St. Peter," approached, holding the key 
of the city gates in his hand ; in a few minutes 
the sun would set, the evening gun be fired and 
the gates closed and locked till sunrise the next 
day. What a commentary on the text, "The Door 
was Shut." The right side means home and hea- 
ven ! ^ 



CHAPTER IV. 
ALGIERS— THE BEAUTIFUL. 

We reached Algiers by sunrise, and while we 
looked upon the "dawn's early light," a sailor 
climbed the mast one hundred and fifty feet to 
float our flag in the skies. 



36 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

The city looked like a collection of lime kilns, 
moles, quays, barges and beggars in rags and 
bags, as well as some in velvet gowns. We 
landed, and it was worth our life to get a cab, 
and when we finally persuaded the driver to 
terms, my companion, a Kentuckian, objected to 
getting in because the horses were not big and 
blooded stock, and so another ten minutes elapsed 
before we found another team only a little worse 
than the former. The first driver went away 
muttering an Englishman's American oath, and 
my friend found it in his heart to echo it many 
times in a warmth and way hotter than the Afri- 
can sun that was giving us a "Hot time in the 
old town" long before night. 

Algiers is four hundred and ten miles from 
Gibraltar. Its harbor is artificial but well for- 
tified as a French garrison, dockyard, arsenal, 
light-house and many varieties of troops proved. 

Curious little and big craft went silently in and 
out and told their life story in grain, wool, hides, 
rags, tobacco, iron and copper ore and coral. 
What a lot of things, but what a lot of people — 
eighty-three thousand! "Men must work" as 
well as "women must weep!" 

The city was founded by the Arabs in A. D. 
935, and became headquarters for a tribe of pir- 
ates who terrorized Christendom for years ; con- 



ALGIERS— THE BEAUTIFUL. 37 

demned twenty thousand Christian captives at 
one time to build its fortifications and harbor de- 
fenses, until the French succeeded in gaining 
possession of the city in 1830. They have held 
it ever since. 

Algiers climbs from the harbor on a range of 
hills in semicircular order, the buildings are sub- 
stantial, snow-white and rise regularly, and are 
surrounded by a rim of greenery which has led 
to its native characterization of a "Diamond in- 
closed in an emerald." 

The Maraout, or Arab quarter, is the upper or 
Southern part of the town, and at once both pic- 
turesque and irregular in Moorish art, architec- 
ture and manners. The French occupy the 
Northern part of the city and the language, 
look, money and morals of Algiers are all de- 
cidedly French; so, too, the names of streets and 
squares, and what is left of Arab features is what 
the Gallic conquerers could not eradicate. 

We found the French part of the city clean 
and well paved — shops and arcades everywhere 
invited the tourist to invest his money for em- 
broideries, ivory, coral, metal, curious fans, in- 
laid work in wood, mother of pearl and ivory and 
semi-barbaric manufactures of colored leather. 

We now learned the oriental habit of two or 
twenty-two prices. It is as beautifully change- 



38 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

able and multicolored as the sea water by sun, 
moon or starlight. But we got our money's 
worth, I'm sure. 

What do you think we saw ? Something more 
than nothing at all — bloomer girls and men be- 
bloused; bread all round that looked like life- 
floats and preservers carried on peasants' arms ; 
jugs by doors, and jars on heads and veils on 
faces (fortunately, if the women were as homely 
as some of the girls) ; family laundry in a pub- 
lic washing square, unmindful of the proverb of 
"dirty linen" ; men cooking food and drink on a 
little brazier by the door, burning oil and wick ; 
a cemetery with a lot of veiled persons kneeling ; 
crying women who were making a paying busi- 
ness of it for three days ; Arabs asleep on the 
sidewalks with their shoes removed to the gut- 
ters and street for safe-keeping ; men working in 
dark and dingy holes and boxes which they call 
stores and shops; boys and girls fighting; blind 
boys scratching; children and dogs in a row 
which was not broken up until an officer snatched 
a horse whip from a bystander and vigorously 
applied it to various parts of the offenders' anat- 
omy ; boys and girls kissing each other and turn- 
ing somersaults and kissing their hands towards 
us, looking sweet and asking for "bucksheesh" 
(hang the word and them) ; school children con- 



ALGIERS— THE BEAUTIFUL. 39 

ning lesson cards in their hands while sitting on 
the floor of a dark, musty room and yelling out 
their lessons to a teacher cross-legged and half 
asleep in the corner ; modest Moorish ladies, like 
veiled prophets, walking the narrow sidewalks ; 
immodest Moorish girls leering from latticed 
windows at passers below ; dancing girls every- 
where, until one of our elderly ladies laughed 
so that her upper teeth fell down, and a little 
Arab who saw it came to a young woman ex- 
pecting hers to do the same ; all this and more 
you may see, and we did. 

I'm not surprised that "A soldier of the legion 
lay dying in Algiers"; even now there is enough 
to kill a regiment ; life's common decencies are 
disregarded by old and young. As we climbed 
the hills the people seemed to go down in morals, 
so that I was only moderately shocked when I 
met an elderly man (whom I had taken for an 
ex-clergyman on the boat) red of eyes and thick 
of tongue, laboring with and almost belaboring 
his guide. Seeing me he shook his fist in the 
yellow fiend's face and said, "For heaven's 
sake, Morrill, take me to the boat; this old fool 
has walked my feet off for two hours and deesn't 
understand a thing I say." 

I had broken my spectacles and left them to be 
mended at a little shop around the corner, or the 



40 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

sight of such depravity must have quite over- 
powered me. As it was, I only sighed and 
smiled and made our fallen friend one of our 
company. 

"All that glisters is not gold." There's the 
house the ex-king of Anam lived in ; there goes 
whirling by the exiled queen of Madagascar ; 
here is the guide, called "Two Time Roberts," 
because of his many wives. Let us go to the 
L'Oasis restaurant and get a drink of black cof- 
fee or mineral water served at a little stand on 
the sidewalk nearest the street, and while we 
view Algerian tragedy and comedy, drink to its 
better future prosperity with thanks for the fun 
it has afforded us. 

While sipping my coffee I gave a little half- 
clad Arab a penny. He put my foot on his box 
and began to scrub my shoes with a thick paste. 
It was quite unnecessary, but he was a winsome 
fellow, and I allowed the work of affection. 
When finished, I offered him a penny (two cents) 
for charity's sweet sake, and he raised a row be- 
cause I did not give him twice as much. He was 
insistent, and my French guide, Dumas, had all 
he could do to talk and threaten him away. I 
must learn the native language in self-defense, 
or French, which goes everywhere. But how 
treacherous a new tongue is ! Think of the sweet 



ALGIERS— THE BEAUTIFUL. 41 

Miss Blank of our party asking for butter and 
receiving a glass of beer. The excuse she made 
for the mistake was, "That old waiter must be 
an Italian." But the American consul, Mr. Kid- 
der of Florida, is here to protect us and deserves 
a better office than the one we found him in on a 
back street. The "office" of an American consul 
should be an object lesson to the natives and visi- 
tors, and unsolicited I speak for furnishings and 
flags befitting the best nation in the world. 

Good-bye, Algiers, with thy Muscat wine, jugs, 
jars, veils, palms, mud-plastered houses, gover- 
nor's "summer palace," cave of vv'ild women, 
sommersaultingboys, assaulting men and insulting 
women ; farewell, Bresson square, Cathedral St. 
Phnippe, Church of Our Lady of Africa, Mosque 
el Tebir and Old Citadel of Kosbah, Place of 
Government and Statue Due de Orleans ; au re- 
voir, archbishop's residence and cathedral and 
royal burial place of St. Jerome ; mosque, with 
thy shoe-removing, hand-and-foot washing, head- 
and-body prostrations, and Boulevarde de la 
Republique. 

Beautiful roads lasso beautiful hills, a look 
gives grand views, till from the highest point of 
Algiers your driver turns a corner and says : "Ah, 
there," or something that means the same thing. 
And there lies the city with its architecture, the 



42 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

bay with its shipping, the blue sky above you, 
the iridescent sea, beneath you, and a Httle hymn 
in your heart : "All things are beautiful," made 
so by the good Father who loves to please his 
children. 



CHAPTER V. 
. QUAINT OLD MALTA. 

A clear sky, a little land bird on deck so tired, 
Galatea islands towards the African coast rising 
like Aphrodite from her sea couch, an oriental 
sunset with sky and cloud fading into flashing 
star, moon and phosphorescent wave, and we 
sight, after coastwise and crosswise sailing, 
Valetta, Malta, with hills, foliage, walls and 
houses like pictures of Jerusalem. Thirty-five 
English war vessels looked at us with their black 
steel eyes, swarthy natives eyed us curiously, and 
uiack-veiled women with "faces covered for peni- 
tence of former profligacy" danced through 
streets in maskball fashion. 

But Malta is not irreligious altogether. Its 
language is a mixture corruption of Arabic and 
Italian. It is willing to declare, "There is no 
God but Allah," but it hates and hesitates to say. 



QUAINT OLD MALTA. 43 

"and Mohammed is his prophet." Malta, one of 
the three Maltese islands belonging to Great Brit- 
ain, is about sixty miles in circumference. It is 
the rendezvous of the British Mediterrenean 
squadron and troops to the number of five thou- 
sand. The land looked rocky and barren to us 
from ship, but on nearer view we saw where un- 
remitting toil had terraced banks, carried soil 
and made gardens in which vegetables, oranges 
and grapes abounded. 

Casal Dingli, seven hundred and fifty feet 
above the sea level, looked down on us 
telling us we could enjoy a mild winter 
or a scorching summer, fanned by a si- 
rocco in autumn which would serve as a change 
if we desired. Malta's history is very misty. 
It is said that Homer peopled it with giants and 
called it Hyperia. Egyptians came and left their 
mark. In 1400 B. C, Phoenicians called it Or- 
gygia and made some pottery. Greeks, Romans, 
Carthaginians and Saracens have fought for the 
possession of Malta, and the names of Resfulus, 
Hamilcar and Sempronius are found in its war 
annals. But all is peaceful now, and our Ameri- 
can consul smiled when he said : "I am happy 
today; witness this can of Boston beans and jug 
of Kentucky v/hisky ; here's Jiow" — and they did. 

On the main guard entrance I read, "Treaty of 



44 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Paris, 1814, the love of the Maltese and the 
voice of Europe confirms these islands to great 
and invincible Great Brtiain." This is memor- 
able, but I shall remember Malta for several other 
reasons ; its old library, which Thackeray visited 
and referred to with its "good old useless books," 
and an Agaricus insect which reduced to powder 
what the critics left of the book; its big theater 
capable of seating one thousand four hundred 
people and the glittering chandeliers of crystal ; 
its barracks' view of bay, port and harbor in 
which were vessels containing Lord Charles 
Beresford and Prince Henry of Germany; 
the old governor's palace two hundred years 
old; the armory in which I saw the 
trumpet which sounded the retreat from 
Rhodes in 1522; the bull or act of dona- 
tion of Malta to St. John of Jerusalem in 
1531 ; the batons of Grand Master La Valette of 
Wagincourt; rope cannon; council chamber with 
tapestries by Le Bland portraying countries, ani- 
mals and flowers ; the chair of Pirillos which 
Napoleon and myself sat in ; the relic of a thorn 
of Christ's crown ; the right foot of Lazarus ; the 
stone cast at St. Stephen ; the Beheading of St. 
John by Caravaggia, who makes the trickling 
blood from the thigh spell M. A. C. ; all this and 
more impressed me. So did a man's remark to 



QUAINT OLD MALTA. 45 

a fakir vender, "No, I won't buy souvenirs of 
places where I don't have a good time." As did 
the nice old minister who spent almost all his 
time on ship and land, writing letters to each 
member of his church and congregation. As did 
the Maltese cats which were as frequent as 
snakes in Ireland. But what I most cannot for- 
get is my embarrassment when one of our party 
who had lost her guide and her head, came to me 
and, with a look of painful interest, asked, "Ex- 
cuse me, sir, do you speak English?" 

Herds of goats are seen in the city and on the 
sidewalk. If there is just room for a man and a 
goat, the man goes in the street, and gives the 
goat a chance. Well, there are goats and goats, 
and these are remarkable. The driver herds 
them and suddenly halts them, grabbing them by 
the legs when he wants to milk them. This is 
the dairy, the milk is pure, (the animals are ex- 
amined daily by the doctor), and you see the 
process of filling your cup or pail; a good in- 
vestment, (for the owner at least), if a goat gives 
fifteen pints three times a day and the fluid re- 
tails for three cents per pint. 

Other places of interest are the main guard, 
Borsa and the military hospital said to contain 
the largest room in Europe, being one hundred 
and eighty-five feet long, thirty-five broad and 



46 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

thrity-one high. The old Fort St. Elmo, far- 
tamed for its heroic defense against the Sara- 
cens, and eulogized by Miss Evans in her novel ; 
and the catacomb chapel, a death's-head affair 
with sliuUs and bones of two thousand bodies of 
priests and Crusaders from the catacombs buried 
here in soil brought from Gethsemane. The 
arches and decorations are all formed of bones. 
"Alas ! poor Yorick !" On all sides they stare 
and say, "Memento mori." I was not afraid in 
this chapel, only in a hurry to join my friends 
who had gone on before and left me alone long 
enough to try to find a bony souvenir. How I 
fell up the steps — my shins and kodak testify. 

As Sir Knight I was interested in the glory 
of the warrior knights, St. John's cathedral, 
whose corner stone was laid in 1573 — a conven- 
tual church, and Hke Durham cathedral, "half 
church of God and half castle." It is a mass of 
mosaic, marble and heap of heraldric emblazonry 
which would fill a library; the floor is paved 
with the graves of four hundred chevaliers, while 
in the crypt below I saw the tombs of twelve 
grand masters with that of LTsle Adam, who 
took first possession of Malta; a venerable dome 
of death filled with skurrying skeletons, when 
the clock overhead with three dials and chime of 
ten bells^ marked the hour, day and month, 



QUAINT OLD MALTA. 47 

The 1< night was despotic no doubt at times 
and in ways, made the natives stand off the pave- 
ment on his approach, and no woman was al- 
lowed on the main street ; yet his benevolent 
character is undoubted ; he planted forests for 
the poor, fed the hungry and built hospitals for 
the sick and was a good Samaritan. 

"His sword is rust, iiis bones are dust, 
His soul is with the saints, we trust." 

Josh Billings says, "There is two things fur 
which we ar never quite prepared, and them two 
things iz twins." I am sure of that, for I have a 
pair of twin brothers, known as "The Rev. 
Morrill Twins," and there is another pair 
in my sister's home. So I was surprised to find, 
in addition to the city of Valetta, the town of 
Vecchio, s;even miles away. We stumbled up a 
stony hill to a gayly decorated cathedral said to 
occupy the site of Publius' house, the place of 
Paul's entertainment. The church of St. Paola 
is built o\ier the grotto which Paul occupied for 
three months. Three minutes of its shape, size 
and smell were enough for me, but for fear I 
might forget it, I was offered one of St. Paul's 
teeth by an enterprising curio dealer outside the 
do'or. 

The catacombs were near by, and we entered 
there, wending and winding our way through 



48 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

former homes, cradles and graves. Our guide 
was more familiar wtih St. Paul's history than 
we were, and with no regard for time or place, 
told us : "Paul come here — Paul who break up 
de Mohammedan church." That was as near 
right as to call me proprietor of the hotel bearing 
the sign reading "Morrell's Hotel, 150 Stradi 
Forni." 

A Roman villa recently excavated welcomed 
us for a small fee with its mosaics, vases, coins 
and specimens of architecture, and we were be- 
guiled into the souvenir habit again. Blessed 
be the Americans. They not only shall inhabit 
the earth, but they have filled the city with 
visitors and thereby gladdened the hearts of the 
hotel keepers and tne many others who await the 
coming of the tourist like the Jews that of the 
Messiah. 

So my guides say in these or words equally 
significant, and it explains the warm hand and 
heartfelt reception which we have received. 

The "Dunera" of Scotland, No. i transport, 
is in the harbor by our side, with one thousand 
three hundred men en route to Egypt. Their 
band plays the "Star Spangled Banner," and 
our band responds with "God Save the Queen." 
American and English flags exchange a wave of 




IvISTe;ning to the; sphinx 



IN HOARY OLD EGYPT. 4g 

patriotism that dashes high and splashes the salt 
tears in our eyes. 

"Adios," say we, all of us, and the big search- 
lights are turned on our vessel, the white Medi- 
terranean crests cling to her sides, and a full 
moon looks down upon some tired tourists who 
have enjoyed a great and never-to-be-forgotten 
visit. 



CHAPTER VI. 
IN HOARY OLD EGYPT. 

I've been to Egypt and feel that anything less 
than a mile high and a million years old is not 
worth looking at. What are Independence hall, 
an English cathedral, the Roman forum or the 
Acropolis of Athens to Egypt, whose calendar is 
a block of stone un-numbered ages old? I shall 
be proof against enthusiastic guides and act as 
my friend from Chicago did in London. 

Englishman — Look at that great hotel there. 
It has three hundred rooms. 

Chicagoan — Don't make such a fuss over noth- 
ing. In Chicago we have a hotel five miles long 
and the waiters ride on horseback to take the 
orders. 

Alexandria! The natne sounded familiar. I had 



50 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

heard of it several times at school and college. 
How a great man, Alexander, founded it in 332 
B. C, and subdued lands as Cleopatra conquered 
hearts. Here the graceful Greek language flour- 
ished, here the Colossus of Rhodes stood, here 
the marble Pharo's lighthouse shone, here 
the world-famed library and museum were 
visited, here the obelisks pointed their glit- 
tering fingers skyward, and here the har- 
em and grandee palaces were simply de- 
lightful. Alexandria, your boom must have 
burst, you seem hardly worthy of your re- 
markable history. But having come so far I 
thought I'd look you over, and this is what I 
found: Plumed palms leaning against a tender 
blue sky, a tower lighthouse, veiled women, tur- 
baned men, donkeys and dates, flies and fleas, 
Pompeys and pillars, mosques and minarets, cam- 
els and cheese, beggar girls and bucksheesh boys. 
We took in the city with a Jehu, who made the 
approach to Pompey's pillar at a rate that threat- 
ened to paint the town with a more sanguinary 
hue than the color of the shaft itself. What 
statue stood on its top, and whence came this 
pillar originally? There is no answer from the 
dead past any more than from the dead in the 
cemetery near by, on which it looks silently and 
sadly. What an old Mohammedan cemetery it 



IN HOARY OLD EGYPT. 51 

is, too. No fence, a lot of stones decorated with 
a turban here and there, or a splash of green 
paint to show that John Smith Mohamed AH, 
Esq., was a descendant of the Holy Prophet, or 
had made a pilgrimage to Mecca, or had done 
some other equally important or devout thing. 

Saint Mark used to preach here until mar- 
tyred by his enemies, or worried to death by his 
congregation, and has a cemetery all to himself 
in the form of the mosque of the One thousand 
and one Columns. I was greatly interested in 
the guide's description of this mosque, but could 
not learn why they put in a thousand pillars for 
a resting place and then added one more. Good 
measure, I suppose. 

The European quarters in stores, streets and 
residences would do honor to Minneapolis. The 
Square of Mehemet AH is a monument to the 
man whose name it bears. A man who shook 
off sultan control, became dictator of Egypt and" 
made the Mahmoodeah canal in one year by forc- 
ing a million slaves to labor on it, even though 
twenty-five tliousand died on its bank from over- 
work and underfeed. This is the man who went 
out from Egypt, subdued Syria, and even threat- 
ened Constantinople, till the united powers of 
Europe called him off. 

My driver kept driving like Alexander Fur- 



52 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

ioso. In vain my courier shook his fist at him 
and said, "Slow!" I quietly whispered, "No" and 
gave him a tip which the horses felt in a crack 
from the whip which kept us in the lead, through 
old and new Alexandria, past palace and dock. 
The natives had a kind of John Gilpin race affair 
and appreciated it, too. Higher than his whip I 
held my umbrella with my silk American flag 
floating from it. Arabs saluted it with "Good," 
a Frenchman raised his hat and said, "Vive 
I'Amerique," while an Irishman, a kind of section 
hand overseer on the canal road, yelled, "Three 
cheers for the red, white and blue," and as soon 
as we could restore our surprised breath, we 
gave them three cheers and a tiger. Alexander 
never felt prouder in his chariot than we in our 
carriage. 

We left Alexandria in a twenty-car train, after 
I had taken a snapshot at its officials, beggars, 
Arabs, camels, and landing, with its boats, bag- 
gage, cotton, bananas, oranges and licorice-water 
vender. The last named came to me in his orien- 
tal garb of fez, shirt and bloomers, while I was 
talking to some ladies, rattled his metallic cup 
and a Scotch bagpipe looking receptacle, offering 
me a drink of what he called, "Good for bellie," 
as he slapped his fat stomach. I was foolish 
enough to try it. One drink was enough. The 



IN HOARY OLD EGYPT. 53 

day was hot and it had the desired effect. I've not 
been thirsty since (for this beverage). Though 
jammed and locked in a kind of baggage car 
coach, our conductor let us out for a breath or 
refreshments at way stations, served by dusty 
men and dirty women. 

Lake Mareotis, broad and shallow, mirrored 
the copper sky above and looked a huntsman's 
paradise with strange looking water fowl On 
we rushed to the profane town of Damanhoor, 
where Napoleon had a close call from being taken 
prisoner by the Memlooks in 1798 ; over the iron 
bridge crossing the Rosetta branch of the Nile, 
where- the brother of the khedive was drowned by 
the train taking a plunge into the open draw, 
to Kafr ez Zyat in Egypt's delta, where we 
halted. Oranges and bananas were all we 
wanted — we were not thirsty any more — and so 
we had time to notice the fertility of the Nile- 
deposited soil which grows cotton, sugar and 
grain in the canal-marked farms with an abun- 
dance only surpassed by the dirt and life on the 
natives. 

We had been brought up on the farm and knew 
something of its cultivation, but for the next few 
hours were to study it a la mode Arabic. I 
always hated to plow ; it was hard to hold the 
handles so the rocks and stumps would not throw 



54 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

them against my ribs, and to keep the horses in 
a straight line and the plow in the ground. But 
here it was different ; a literal "soft snap," be- 
cause the ground was dry and easily powdered 
by a little crooked kind of a stick, which two 
camels or buffaloes, or a camel and a buffalo, 
lazily dragged .along. Bible pictures of this ori- 
ental scene came to my mind, and. the Scripture, 
"Be not unequally yoked," a disregard of which 
has made hard plowing and cultivation for many 
families. 

The chief occupation of these naked farmers 
is not plowing, but watering the land. Things 
will not grow without water; it does not rain, 
water is scarce, and that may be one reason why 
the natives use so little of it for bathing pur- 
poses. I counted scores of shadoofs and sakiehs. 
You know what they are without going to Africa 
to see them. The shadoof is a kind of old-fash- 
ioned well-sweep with a stone on one end and 
a watertight bucket on the other, resting on a 
pivot, lowered and filled with water, and raised 
and emptied into a little gutter and run across 
the part of the farm that's dry and needs a drink. 
The sakieh is a cogged wheel turned by buf- 
faloes. It works upon another' wheel at right 
angles, and on it are fastened pots and jugs 
which empty themselves in pools or troughs. 



IN HOARY OLD EGYPT. 55 

Still another M^ay, more primitive and strik- 
ing is seen when two men stand in the water 
with a basket between them, which they fill with 
the regularity of a machine, and pass up and on 
to number three on the bank, who sends it in 
the needed direction. How the poor fellows 
worked. How hot and tired they were, how list- 
less and hopeless their work seemed, how their 
bronzed black bodies glistened as the perspiration 
ran down ! 

The people are the Copts, descended from the 
ancient Egyptians ; fellahs, or farmers ; and 
Arabs, or conquerors. They raise wheat, corn, 
rice, beans, flax, cotton, cucumbers, melons and 
dates. The principal animals are the ox, camel, 
dog, ass, crocodile and hippopotamus. 

We rush on past a number of mud villas and 
stations, till, passing Tookh, I shout, "The Pyra- 
mids !" I am the first on the train to discover 
them, and am filled with the pride of a Columbus 
or Balboa. Instantly many heads crowd the car 
windows and echo, "Pyramids !" With the Mo- 
kattaim hills on the left and the minarets of the 
city in the distance, we enter a paradise of beau- 
tiful scenery and our train stops at Cairo. We 
are met by a crowd of noisy Arab baggage work- 
men and donkey boys, whose well intentioned 
yells, gestures and assistance make us glad we 



56 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

carry extra life insurance, hope to enter heaven, 
and are under the management of a friend, who 
will make it as comfortable for us as if we were 
at home. 

Old and New Cairo are distinct cities in loca- 
tion, buildings, manners, morals, and dress, but 
the Saxon is dominating. Modern stores and 
hotels are encroaching, the red-coat is found on 
British soldier and Egyptian guard, and we find 
an influence for good government which natives 
as well as tourists commend. 

But I want a guide and not a guard, and Ali 
is my man. A tall, turbaned, bloused boy fel- 
low, who, though not very old, is brown and se- 
date as the mummies, but not quite so mum, and 
cordially promises, "I do you much pleasure." 

The amusements offered were varied ; I could 
attend the opera-house and listen to Italian music 
or see a French farce ; take a turn at the hippo- 
drome and have a circus ; or stop at an open- 
air play on the Esbekeeyah; or if religiously in- 
clined, take in the convent with its dancing der- 
vishes and barbarous music; watch a snake 
charmer; drink cafe noir (sweetened mud) 
in a little shop where the waiters and 
loungers were as thick as the drink; or 
see Arabs gamble with dice and cards, much as 
they do in America; go to a kind of vaudeville, 



IN HOARY OLD EGYPT. 57 

where a stringed band of lady performers tried 
to beguile us by American airs and Persian 
dances into buying drinks for them at the rate 
of one or two dollars a bottle, and poor stuff at 
that ; or meander through the fish market at mid- 
night, where streets were filled with citizens and 
sightseers, sidewalks with roystering soldiers, 
shops with shrewd traders, dens with drunken 
natives and miles of houses with women outcasts 
from all quarters of the globe, leering, luring and 
lustful, caged like beasts looking through iron- 
barred gratings which were necessary to keep 
them from murderous assault on the morals, 
money and lives of the passersby. 

"Variety is the spice of life." We had some 
of it in the Midway at the Chicago Fair, but the 
real thing, the red pepper and mustard are found 
in Cairo after twelve p. m. 

All this and more I saw. Ali was a very good 
guide and guard, and did me "much pleasure." 
We visited Cairo's curious bazars, where the most 
fastidious feminine shopper may find cloth, porce- 
lain, glasswork, slippers, embroidered leather, 
jewelry, precious stones, coffee, if she wishes to 
drink; tobacco, if she wants to smoke, and arms 
if she must fight. 

The drives of Cairo are delightful, and none 
more so than on Shoobra avenue, shaded by 



S8 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

acacias and sycamores, where for five miles we 
see humanity in all kinds of vehicles out for air- 
ing and pleasure ; royalty and richness with a 
Nubian, Sais, black and bedizened with gold and 
jewels, running before it like a John Baptist to 
prepare the way — or beggars and donkeys, mer- 
chants and leering camels, till you reach the pal- 
ace with its pavements and porticos, frescoeSj 
lake and Alhambra-like columns. 

"Who's at my window?" or Mashrebeeyah, as 
the Arabs say. What a dainty latticed window 
of cedar and pearl to keep out light and heat, 
the curious gaze of neighbors across the alley 
street, and yourself, who would give much to see 
the flashing eyes, red lips and pearl teeth of 
the girl who laughs at you, makes love to you or 
calls you a Byronic "giaour" (Infidel). 

We drove out to the pyramids through a nine- 
mile line of acacias and palms on a fine road 
built by the khedive for the Prince of Wales in 
i860, and myself. We climbed from Gizeh to 
the pyramids, forty feet above the plain, where 
a mob of men would have massacred us had it not 
been for the sheik, to whom we paid paistres for 
a kind of permission to ascend the pyramid, and 
for police protection in the form of three guides 
whom we feed to pull and push us up about sixty 
feet higher than the cross of St. Paul's cathedral. 



IN HOARY OLD EGYPT. 59 

We crawled up like beetles and jumped like 
grasshoppers and were bucksheeshed for water 
bottled in clay jars, coin, typhoon, and scarabs, 
from base to apex. We tried to be calm, classi- 
cal, historical, and reverent, but "that old 
guide" was heard on all sides. The most fortu- 
nate man in our party was Rev. Mr. B., who had 
his shoulder pulled out of joint when he had only 
climbed five steps and was carried down to the 
hotel at the base of the pyramid, where he could 
eat, drink and listen to the orchestra, or visit with 
Dr. George Dana Boardman, the well-known 
Baptist Christian scholar and gentleman who 
was stopping there for his health. 

Hops, steps and jumps from two to four feet 
is no joke whether you make them in fifteen or 
twenty minutes, but at last you are on a platform 
thirty feet square. I took a drink (flask of wa- 
ter), wrote a postal card home, waved my Ameri- 
can flag to the sphinx at my right, took a hun- 
dred-mile view, which included beautiful Cairo, 
the fertile Nile, picturesque palm trees, and the 
sandy Sahara sea with its white-capped Bedouin 
tents. 

The "descensus" was not "facilis" — as Vir- 
gil said of something else. I thought it 
was, tried to come down alone and almost suc- 
ceeded, but with a presto agitato that would have 



6o TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

left no "musical memories." Tired of my guides, 
I said one "would hold me for a while." Re- 
lustantly No. 2 unclasped my hand, and the other 
guide holding my left with his two, I tried to 
step down a three-foot stone, turned my right 
ankle with a sprain that made me lose my bal- 
ance, and would have resulted in a fall severer 
than Minnesota weather and made this chronicle 
unnecessary, had not my faithful Ali jerked me 
back and the other ally come to the rescue, tell- 
ing me what a fool I was and how, if I had been 
killed they would have lost their job. I said 
yes, gave them each an extra half dollar and was 
providentially placed on terra firma again. 

On and In was our Excelsior motto. How 
hot and tired I was, and the guides still exasper- 
ating. But I entered a hole forty feet above the 
base, even if to do so were to realize Dante's 
hell motto "Leave Hope Behind." For aught I 
know he wrote that line after making a journey 
to the interior of Cheops. We crawled and slid 
three hundred and forty-seven feet until we got 
ninety feet below the base of the pyramid into a 
forty-six by twenty-seven by eleven foot room ; 
thanked God and took courage. Nearer the en- 
trance, sixty feet, is an upward passage leading 
to the center of the pyramid, and at a distance 
of one hundred and twenty-five feet one reaches 



IN HOARY OLD EGYPT. 6i 

the great gallery. We found a well of com- 
munication one hundred and ninety-one feet deep 
and later visited the Queen's Chamber (she 
wasn't in) ; climbed the great gallery's smooth 
surface till we reached the King's Chamber (he 
was out also, so was our magnesium light). 
Above this place we learned that there were some 
other rooms, built to lessen the weight of the 
upper part of the pyramid. We knew enough. 
How dry our throats and wet our clothes were; 
how we described incredible base slides and off- 
hand feats; how I helped one woman (afraid of 
her guide in the dark), a forlorn female, pulling 
her out of the narrows as one would a cat from 
an ash barrel ; and how she resembled an um- 
brella turned inside out by a gust of wind — are 
matters of tourist notebook record. 

The pyramids are beyond the power of 
kodak or critic to portray. On the shore of 
the Great Desert sand sea they look like a great 
triangle whose base is in the earth and apex in 
the sky. So large that if Cheops were hollow 
it has been estimated that St. Peter's could be 
placed within it, dome and all, like an ornament 
in a glass case. St. Paul's could then in turn 
be easily placed inside of St. Peter's, for the top 
of its dome is one hundred feet lower 
than the summit of the great pyramid. 



62 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Thirteen acres of stone! There is mate- 
rial enough to build a wall ten feet high 
and one and one-half feet thick around the whole 
frontier of France. Cui bono? For gymnastic 
feats by your scribe, for astronomical calculation, 
for an inspired standard of perfect measurement, 
or for monuments of vanity? No, but for 
graves on the "desert setting sun" side of the 
Nile, as at Thebes, a. monarch's mausoleum. 
How true it seemed, "All things fear Time, but 
Time fears the pyramids." 

But the camels are coming and I want to ride 
one. The driver takes my money with one hand 
and with the other strikes the beast's forelegs 
with a stick. Mr. Camel kneels to the accompani- 
ment of strange sounds from his internal machin- 
ery ; leers at me with his off eye ; drops his lips, 
showing teeth which would leave but a grease 
spot of my anatomy, then I board him and the 
ship of the desert pitches fore and aft, rights it- 
self, and I sail through waves of yellow sand and 
dust to the portals of the Sphinx temple and the 
great statue itself. 

The Temple of the Sphinx, below the figure, 
was exhumed by Mariette. Within it he found 
nine statues of King Cephren, who built the sec- 
ond pyramid, almost rivaling Cheops. Its situa- 
tion in the Necropolis of Memphis has led to the 



IN HOARY OLD EGYPT. 63 

conclusion that this shrine was used for funeral 
obsequies. Overturned and forsaken are the al- 
tars, the shroud of sand has swathed its portals 
and ''dead! dead" is the epitaph. 

The Sphinx is different and still alive. "O, 
sleepless, changeless, voiceless, majestic, eternal 
sphinx," with human head of intelligence and 
lion's body of strength, carved from natural rock 
at the edge of the desert, from crown to out- 
spread paws, sixty-four feet, and within them an 
altar to the rising sun. Stony, silent, staring 
into futurity, the sole survivor of races and re- 
ligions, image of eternity, what sacred thought is 
thine? "We have our day and cease to be," but 
thou dost outlive all. And yet we like to be re- 
membered ; pictures as well as initials are proof 
of the desire for immortality, and so mounted 
upon my camel steed, with the pyramids for a 
background and the sphinx for a pedestal, I had 
my Tenderfoot picture taken ! 

Poor old sphinx ! The French used her nose 
for a target and she looks battered and wanting 
in an expression, said to have once been of "soft- 
est beauty and most winning grace." But she 
antedates Cheops, and we left her eyeing us with 
stony indifference, as she had Egyptian kings, 
Roman conquerors, and Napoleonic warriors. 



64 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

CHAPTER VII. 
RAMBLING IN EGYPT. 

I visited Helwan, a Cairo summer resort, well 
named for its sulphur springs. I shall re- 
member it for several reasons. It was the resi- 
dence of my mother's brother, Dr. GuHan Lan- 
sing, whose name I bear. He was a missionary 
in Egypt for forty years. His body lies buried 
in the European cemetery outside Old Cairo, 
but his influence lives in the books he wrote, the 
church he built, the friends he made and his sons, 
Dr. McCarrol Lansing, a prominent oculist in 
Cairo and John G. Lansing, D. D., America. 

The doctor and family lived at Hel- 
wan. I had played with Carrol in York state 
when a boy, and so I hurriedly decided to visit 
him, rushed to the station and could just gasp 
"Helwan ;" the porter bought my ticket and 
pushed me into a first-class car. This was un- 
necessary, for a second-class would have done 
just as well, or even a third — if you could get 
first-class company. It is not so much the sitting 
as the surroundings. Soon we pulled out — we, 
that is, myself and a first-class passenger by my 
side. He was tall, bronzed, well dressed, and 
earnestly reading a paper and smoking a cigar- 



RAMBLING IN EGYPT. 65 

ette. Not to choke, but to attract his attention in 
a friendly way, I coughed. He looked up, said 
"pardon." I replied "merci." 

Alone in this compartment and far from home, 
the sun setting and the pyramids casting a dole- 
ful shadow, I felt skittish, and so ventured more 
French. He replied in Arabic or something 
equally unintelligible ; whether he was from Par- 
is, doing business in Cairo, or an Arab working 
for a French firm, I could not make out. I 
pointed to the passing scenery, he nodded. I 
said, "Helwan." My accent caused him to start; 
he put his hand in his pocket and I felt my time 
had come. He drew out a rice paper and to- 
bacco and rolled a cigarette, which he handed 
me. 

Shades of Pharaoh and Holy Moses! I don't 
smoke even cigars, and as for cigarettes, had I 
not denounced them as "dainty bits of damna- 
tion?" But life, perhaps, was at stake, and so I 
took it and a match, lit it, seized it between my 
teeth and took two big pufifs. He smoked ele- 
gantly, the result of years of practice, and could 
inhale and exhale deliberately and divinely. I 
tried to but swallowed the smoke so deep I 
couldn't raise it and choked and coughed and 
cried. I hurriedly finished it and he gave me 
another; that went in four gasping puffs, and 



66 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

then he offered me still another. I don't know 
what would have happened if we hadn't reached 
Helwan, where my cousin was waiting for me. 
Seeing my companion he called him by a titled 
Arabic name and introduced me as his relative 
from America. All's well that ends well, and the 
cigarettes didn't make me very sick. But I've 
often felt sorry for my first-class friend who 
could not understand a word of the • two lan- 
guages I spoke with equal proficiency and cor- 
rectness. 

Returning to Cairo I saw- the palace of Ge- 
zeereh. It was built by Ismael Pasha, on an is- 
land formed by a branch of tne Nile. lie was 
a luxurious fellow and spent money like a Louis 
XIV. There is a fine ball and reception room, 
hall and stair-case, pretty gardens and apart- 
ments where the Empress Eugenie, emperor of 
Austria and myself and friends were entertained. 
The palace is used now for a first-class hotel. 
But it was a little too far away for bald-headed 
men who wanted to be near the city's center at 
night and so many of my friends were trans- 
ferred to the Grand Continental. 

Old Cairo was not forgotten. We visited its 
shops and lazy smoking people lying like in- 
sects in the sun, its "Crown of Mosques" and 
Coptic churches with paintings. I was held up 



RAMBLING IN EGYPT. ^7 

in an alley-way by a beautiful girl, who said, with 
outstretched hand, "Me bucksheesh to give 
God." Rhoda was near with her Nilometer to 
mark the rise of the annual inundation 
and spot where Moses was found. Ebers 
makes Rhoda a second Paradise, but it was Par- 
adise Lost on me with its dinky-boat ferry and 
dirty little hoodlums who threw stones at us, 
and some sickly-looking water carriers who first 
bathed in the water they afterwards dipped up 
into goat and donkey skins to sell in the city for 
drinking and culinary purposes. I felt as Doug- 
las Jerrold once said: "If I were an undertaker 
I know of several persons whom I could work 
for with considerable satisfaction." 

Mosques are as numerous in Cairo as mos- 
quitoes in my native New Jersey. There may 
be a thousand; I visited five hundred, more or 
less. Sometimes I took olT my slippers at the 
outer door, and at others I wore a kind of moc- 
casin over my tourist shoes and shuffled and 
slid over the old floors, wondering how in the 
name of everything sacred I could profane any- 
thmg with a good sole like mine. In Cairo 
you must do as the Cairenes do and I wanted 
to "do them" more than once. 

I visited the famous tombs of the CaHphs. The 
tracery was broken and the alabaster blackened. 



68 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

"Sic transit gloria mundi;" Caliphs' tombs yes- 
terday are homes of Egyptian beggars and bats 
today. 

The citadel is Cairo's show place and special 
object of interest. It is made of stones from one 
of the pyramids. We crawled up the winding 
path leading to it and entered its elliptical gate. 
On a red letter day, four hundred and 
fifty Memlooks and their leader were killed. 
One man escaped by spurring his horse 
from the terrace. I know he did, for 
Ali showed me the prints of the horse's hoofs 
as they struck the walls in making the leap. 
There is a splendid view overlooking the city, 
lower Egypt, with its domes and delta, pyramids, 
palaces, obelisk, desert and Nile, which rocked 
Moses to sleep and played erotic music for 
Antony and Cleopatra. 

The Mosque of Mohammed Ali, one of the 
most costly, is modeled after St. Sophia, with its 
cupolas, domes and tapering minarets and lining 
of alabaster. Here, as elsewhere, one of Mr. 
Ruskin's "Lamps of Architecture" has gone out, 
for we meet the "He" of parts of columns painted 
to look like alabaster. The body of Mohammed 
Ali lies near by, in state, and the tombs of the 
Memlooks just yonder. 

I had been separated from my party that 



RAMBLING IN EGYPT. 69 

morning and took a special carriage and guide 
to this mosque. Joseph's well was near by and 
so I ran up the hill to it, and down the winding 
stairs in it, wondering at its fifteen feet width 
and depth of nearly three hundred to the Nile 
level. I found donkeys raising the water to the 
top by an endless chain with little pails attached 
and was sorry one was not large enough to put 
me in and lift me to the top. 

The Gizeh museum is the most fascinating and 
valuable thing in the city to the antiquarian. It is 
the monument of Mariette Bey's labors in dig- 
ging up and deciphering Egypt's old records 
from temples, tombs, statues, sphinxes and sera- 
peum. His study cost him his Hfe, but he will 
live long after his statue crumbles. 

The golden age of Egyptian art culture, poli- 
tics and religion was not in Rameses II. 's time, 
but Cheops' and Menes was no barbarian but 
a king of some civilization, the finished product 
of a long line of ancestors. 

Sphinxes stare, granite growls, scarabs crawl, 
pottery pleases, mummies meekly look in yonr 
face with pitiful mien, while as a commentary on 
the "abiding word" Rameses II. — Israel's op- 
presser, Moses' opposer, lies with folded hands 
as if praying dumbly for forgiveness for the great 
wrong done God's chosen people. More impres- 



70 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

sive than cathedral service was the time spent in 
this museum. It was a sudden shock to be 
asked to lunch outside in the garden beyond 
Mariette's statue, and be forced to investigate 
antiquarian bread, butter, chicken and fruit, 
which may have been exhumed from the royal 
tombs. The only redeeming feature was a kind 
of drink corked in bottles which foamed when 
popped, and had the odor and taste of hops. Of 
course it wasn't, but when we got through there 
was none left. 

One thing in the museum I remember as dis- 
tinctly as Poe did the raven. It was a wooden 
statue known as "The Village Chief," and called 
so by the Arabs, because of its resemblance to 
their master. But my tourist friends said it 
looked more like me than him, and it 
you want to know what that is there are 
several of my photos to tell you. It is only four 
thousand years old. Was he my ancestor, from 
whom I had transmigrated? His eyes were 
white quartz and the iris of darker stone, with a 
silver nail for a pupil, covered with lids of 
bronze. Bartolini was an excellent sculp- 
tor, ranking next to Canova, but if my 
friend, "Bart," of the Minneapolis Journal, 
will go to Cairo and make a drawing of that 
wooden man, he will achieve fame and infamy 



RAMBLING IN EGYPT. 71 

at once. I wonder if the overseer was bright, 
even if not handsome? I shall never forget how 
I felt when I looked into his face. Even now 
I often jump with fright at remembrance of that 
statue, and say, with the darkie, "Is dis me or 
not me, or has the Debbil got me?" 

Heliopolis, the Greek city of the sun, is a city 
often mentioned in the Old Testament, under 
the name of On. Here Joseph is said to have 
married the daughter of the priest, and Moses, 
Pythogoras and Euclid received instruction. 
There was a fine temple once to which rich gifts 
were made by Egyptian kings. Yet all that is 
left of former greatness and grandeur is a ma- 
jestic obelisk, on whose sides are hieroglyphic 
hymns to the gods, in letters once filled with 
gold, bright as the sun ray's which it symbolized. 
Returning to Cairo we halt before the famous 
sycamore known as the virgin's tree, within 
whose sacred trunk Mary and the Christ child 
are said to have found refuge during the flight 
into Egypt. 

The palm is a beautful tree, straight, branch- 
less, often rising one hundred feet. It furnishes 
the Arabs with food, drink, medicine, shelter, 
clothes and fuel. I heard there was a new use 
for it every day in the year, and that the natives 



•^2 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

celebrated its utility in prose and verse. They 
take the palm for tall stories. 

Mariette made Memphis, the oldest city in 
Egypt, and capital of Menes, and large enough 
to require a half day's journey to cross it from 
North to South. His research here found five 
thousand statues and tablet inscriptions and 
two thousand sphinxes, now found in the 
world's famous galleries. What remains is 
sand, silence, stately palm trees, occasion- 
al tourists, with natives, camels and donkeys, 
and the big statue of Rameses II. — dust to dust, 
prone on its sculptured face, too large to be up- 
lifted or removed. 

Luxor, Thebes and Karnak are six hundred 
miles from the Mediterranean sea, but they were 
the Mecca of my pilgrimage. The railroad ac- 
commodation was not Pullmanic. We bought 
water when we could not steal it. The weather 
grew cold enough at 2 a. m. for ulsters and 
blankets, and the dust settled on us till we rose 
from our beds in the morning like bodies ex- 
humed from the sands. 

I was domiciled at Pagnon's hotel. This 
was my first Oriental experience. I found 
no soap in my room, and only enough water in a 
little earthen jar to wash my face. I shook my 



RAMBLING IN EGYPT. 73 

fist at a black-skinned, turbaned servant, who 
brought more "maia," water, but no soap. I took 
some from a traveler's valise and gave him what 
was left (not much); went out to breakfast and 
gorged on coffee, rolls and omelet. Our com- 
panions were little birds — I wanted one on toast 
— which flew in 'out out the door and lighted on 
our tables and backs of chairs. From the win- 
dow was a picture of the Nile, village, palms and 
ruins that no money could buy. 

My guide here was "Ki Yam," whose card de- 
clared he was the "best in the city." I took him 
on faith and at sight and can recommend him for 
superior service. He gave the names of former 
patrons, showed us all the curios of the hotel's 
big garden and introduced us to a dozen curio 
stores, where merchants waylaid us every time 
we came near. 

But we are going to Thebes. It gets hot very 
early here, and so one morning we were roused 
at 4 o'clock, ate an Oriental lunch, were rowed 
over the Nile in a tubby boat. It could not land, 
and this made it necessary for brawny, bare- 
legged rascals to pick us and the women up, put 
us on their backs, frog style, wade with us to 
the shore and then demand bucksheesh. Then 
followed a scene. As the "Asyrian came down 
like a wolf on the fold," so a hundreddonkey boys 



74 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

besought us and belabored each other in the mad 
effort to hire out their donkeys. They yelled 
and fought, cried and crowded, until, by some 
unknown legerdemain, I found myself on Jum- 
bo's back, a ruin of my former self, en route for 
the ruins, famed in song and story. 

Over there I made one valuable discovery, 
which entitles me to- a place with Champillon, of 
Rosetta stone fame. The hieroglyphs look 
just like my penmanship, which has puzzled to 
profanity so many compositors and readers. I 
may have been the "heathen" that they called me, 
and if so, an Egyptian in a pre-existent state be- 
fore I arrived at America. If my critics will visit 
Egypt and decipher its old monuments my hand 
writing will be "dead easy" and their occupa- 
tion will be gone. 

On this west side we visited the Tombs of the 
Kings in, "Bab-el-Moluk, Tomb of Seti L, called 
Belzonis after the discoverer with its fresh and 
perfect looking paintings; of Rameses III., called 
Belzoni's, with its high relief figures at the en- 
trance; of Rameses IV., with its high ceiling and 
granite sarcophagus; of Rameses IX., with the 
famous pictures representing resurrection after 
death; and of Rameses VI., with its great length 
and astronomical figures on the ceiling. 



RAMBLING IN EGYPT. 75 

We promenaded through the Ramesium or 
Memnonium, unrivaled for its architecture. It 
was buih by Rameses II., whose fame is lettered 
on its walls. Its demolished pylons and sculp- 
tures of battles, its court with figures of Ram- 
eses and attributes of Osiris, and the most gi- 
gantic statue in Egypt, cut from a solid block of 
granite, once seen are not soon forgotten. 

We interviewed the Colossi, those statues of 
King Amunoph III. as faithful as the Roman 
guard of Pompeii. Fifty-two feet in height, 
they stand as they did before the ancient temple. 
Mennon was vocal that afternoon. I stood be- 
side it, with no priest to climb, conceal himself or 
chant within, or sun to warm the dew-chilled, 
earthquake-cracked stone. 

I was entertained at the Temple of Rameses 
III., second only to Karnak in grandeur, with its 
military monument, palace, decoration of Ram- 
eses presenting his captives to the gods, and 
painted specimens of races inhabiting Asia, Ly- 
bia and Soudan. 

What a marvelous court, with its seven Asa- 
ride columns, suggestive of funeral services, and 
eight columns with papyrus capitals, beyond 
whose granite portals we entered a second pylon 
into the inner court of pillars and bright-colored 
sculptures. 



jd TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Thebes in its monumental record was a 
marvelous city. Sad words "what might have 
been" if time and vandal had spared, when 
even now its walls are found supported by stat- 
ues thirty feet high, whose stolid stare and folded 
arms look silently down on a fallen brother's 
statue of King Rameses, which measures twenty- 
six feet across his polished granite shoulders. If 
quarried, how carried here and set up? What 
Lucifer thoughts caused him to be cast down? 

What a time ! How my old and sick driver 
could run all day by Jumbo donkey's heels, 
gouge his sides and steer his tail to the accom- 
paniment of a guttural "ah-yereglah" cluck and 
not kill the donkey, him or myself, I've never 
learned. Dear little Egyptian donkeys, mouse- 
colored and frowsy looking, long-haired or 
clipped, white, dirty or painted with zebra stripes, 
long ears, little feet and big, braying voice; how 
patient and serviceable you are. If Luther be- 
lieved there were to be horses in heaven; if kind 
preachers put the asses of their congregation in 
Paradise; if ancient religion and modern art have 
apotheosized the bull, cow, dog and cat, let me 
take ofif the big saddle and fooHsh brass and 
glass ornaments from thy neck and garland thee 
with flowers -of respect and affection, and give 



RAMBLING IN EGYPT. 77 

thee plenty to eat and drink and an eternity of 
rest to which thou are entitled. 

A look at Luxor, which looks on us as the 
pyramids did on Napoleon's soldiers, and I shall 
end this Egyptian chapter. Luxor means "pal- 
aces," and was a luxurious place. The barbar- 
ians wondered at it; Homer sang about it, and 
in its commanding ruins it burns its memory in- 
to the traveler's brain. 

Next to the pyramids the Temple of Karnak is 
the v/orld's greatest ruin. Its two-mile avenue 
approach must have been lined with two thou- 
sand colossal sphinxes, whose crouching, crumb- 
ling fragments stretch towards you as to- the 
worshipers of long ago. Beyond is the portal sev- 
enty feet high, and under it the multitudes 
marched. You enter and gaze on templed ruins 
a mile and a half in circumference; walls eighty 
feet up; towers one hundred and forty feet high, 
while obelisk fingers, clean cut in this preserva- 
tive climate of the Nile, point to an inscription on 
the wall where Rameses asks help from the gods 
because he had built them "eternal mountains." 

Think of obelisks forty centuries old ! Moul- 
dered the hands that carved them from the vol- 
canic granite — prone or perpendicular, plain or 
lettert d, one reads a wonderful story. As the 
Yosenite trees grew larger as we approached 



78 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

them, until what was large was small in compar- 
ison, ;'o here the columns grew as we 
threaded the temple's main avenue. One 
hall ha'i one hundred and thirty-four col- 
umns, St me thirty-six feet in circumference and 
sixty-six feet high, supporting solid blocks 
forty feet long, all crowned with giant lotus 
leaves, which gave a grace to these granite 
mountains. Would you insult or strike old age? 
Yet vandals have, and one of the columns they 
tried to overturn, but it only leans. Beautiful in 
their ruins, what must they have been with blue- 
domed ro( f and gold-starred ceiling and inscrip- 
tions of paise to their deities when their stony 
lips spoke adoration! 

Egypt has gods by the wholesale. Wilkinson 
stops at seventy-three and says there are more. 
I saw some representations of first and second- 
class deities and they all looked like the devil. Ra, 
the "Sun God," was a royal deity; he had a 
hawk's head with a disk on end for a hat, 
trimmed with a few plumes or a snake charm. 
The beetle (scarabaeus) was one of his chief em- 
blems. I have 'one taken from the body of a 
mummy by the khedive and given to Dr. Gulian 
Lansing, who gave it to me, his namesake. It 
is of an emerald green color, bears the royal car- 
touch, and is good for another five thousand 



RAMBLING IN EGYPT. 79 

years. They used to worship the powers of na- 
ture, especially the sun; the moon was set way 
back; evil deities were not forgotten and various 
live animals were especially venerated in certain 
towns. Rawlinson suggests that the many gods 
of the popular mythology were mere names, 
"personified attributes of one true deity, or part 
of the nature which he had created, considered 
as informed and inspired by him." 

When it comes to show their ceremonials were 
splendid. Buildings painted and sculptured ex- 
ceeded all others in grandeur. The image of 
the god was placed on a central shrine, sur- 
rounded by chambers of the priests, courts, col- 
onades, sculptures, sphinxes and obelisks and 
towers at each side of the entrance. Costly cer- 
emonies were conducted, incense rose, hymns of 
prayer and praise were sung. 

The Egyptian may have had curious and con- 
fused notions in religion, but he didn't believe 
that this world or the next would be the same to 
the sinner as to the saint. Birch says his life 
was "to be pious to the gods, obedient to the 
wishes of his sovereign, afifectionate towards his 
wife and children, giving bread to the hungry, 
drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, oil to 
the wounded, and burial to the dead." We need 
a revival of an Egyptian "old time religion." 



8o TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Undertakers were busy in those days as now, 
only they embalmed, and the office was regarded 
as sacred. They emptied the body of its vitals, 
filled it with drugs, anointed the skin, soaked it 
in nitre, wrapped it in linen bandages, stuck it 
with gum, put it in a coffin and there you are, 
or were, or could be set up or carried around 
like so much cordwood by your relatives. Very 
handy. 

At death the Egyptian believed his soul went 
to the "Hall of Truth " and was judged in the 
presence of Osiris. A pair of scales was brought 
out, in one end was placed the emblem of truth, 
in the other a vase of the man's good deeds. If 
they were enough to weigh down the scale, his 
happy soul entered the "Boat of the Sun," and 
was ferried to the "Pools of Peace." If he had 
been long on creed and short on conduct, his 
miserable soul was sentenced to transmigration 
in bodies of unclean animals. If that didn't 
make him better Osiris just annihilated him. If 
he had been good the four ape-faced genii singed 
off his little faults and made him the companion 
of Osiris for a little visit of three thousand years 
after which the soul flew back to its mummy, 
rose from the dead and tried it again on earth. 
This program was repeated until the cycle was 



'■^- 



RAMBLING IN EGYPT. 8i 

complete and he was rewarded by being absorbed 
into the divine essence whence he came. 

Philae, the beautiful island, is sacred to Isis, 
the burial place of her husband, Osiris, who was 
embalmed in Egypt's most sacred oath, "By him 
whO' sleeps in Philae." I was anxious to rest in 
"Pharaoh's bed," beautifully built by Tiberius. 
Then there is the Temple Abou-Simbel, carved 
into the river's rocky hillside for a length of 
three hundred feet, with statues whose fore- 
fingers are four feet long. Who was this mighty 
Angelo who gave time and distance for art fac- 
tors? 

We know but little. Maspero has said: 
"Egypt is far from being exhausted. Its soil 
contains enough to occupy twenty centuries of 
workers, for what has come to light is compar- 
atively nothing." 

Sunday afternoon I was tired, hot and dusty, 
and wanted a bath. The Nile was inviting. The 
boatmen wondered why I did not bathe by the 
bank if I had tO' bathe. Their immodest scruples 
were overcome when I gave them good money 
to row me to the west shore. Money talks all 
languages and a gold skeleton key opens all 
hearts. I left my clothes in the boat with my 
watch and pocketbook. The black rascals mo- 



82 . TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

tioned me to take a long swim or dive far down 
or stay under long-. But it was too dangerous. 
They are born thieves and thugs and I feared 
them more than I did the crocodiles. So I kept 
one eye on them and the other on the pets of the 
Nile and had a royal bath in the royal river. I 
floundered around and fished to see if I could 
find some buried souvenir. All I gathered was 
mud. Dr. Murch, the American missionary, 
said I was lucky to get off so lightly. 

The Nile is the main artery of Egyptian life. 
It symbolized life in contrast to the desert with 
its death. One is not surprised that it has been 
deified and that the traveler looks with pleasure 
on the statue of the Father of the Nile in the 
Vatican, reclining upon a small sphinx with six- 
teen sportive pigmies playing on his arms and 
legs, representing the river's annual rise of six- 
teen cubits. 

Historically, Egypt was back of Greece and 
Rome, the mother of art and cradle of invention. 

Biographically, she was the home of Rameses 
and Pharaoh, Moses and Joseph, Alexander the 
Great and the Ptolomies, Caesar, Antony and 
Cleopatra. 

Sentimentally, she was as mysterious as the 
pyramids, sphinx, palm and Nile. 

Mentally, she was the garden of astronomy, 



THE HOLY CITY. 83 

philosophy, architecture, sculpture and painting. 

ReHgiously, she was the sanctuary of a learned 
priesthood, elaborate system of theology, and 
inspiring ritual for the dead. 

Egypt has intoxicated me, the sculptured leaf 
of the lotus flower which gives grace and airiness 
to the granite columns, has entered my blood. 
I, too, am a lotus eater. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
THE HOLY CITY. 

Joppa has a hard name among sailors because 
she offers rocks and wind-swept surf to land in 
instead of a good harbor. But she was kind to 
us, and sturdy natives in big boats on a smooth 
sea rowed us to shore. I had no dread of being 
ground to kindling wood or capsizing or falling 
into a big fish's mouth as Jonah did here. My 
only fear was that the salt water splashed on a 
new box coat would put leopard's spots on it 
which could not be changed. I was anxious to 
land and see Sister Dorcas, for I was out at the 
elbows and several other places and she had a 
reputation for making and mending garments 
for the poor. But she was gone and none of the 



84 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

family in, so I left my card and her house a 
sorry sight. Judging from the appearance of the 
ragamuffins who followed me, no sewing is done 
nowadays, and if cleanliness is Christian, Joppa 
ought not to be included in a journey in the Holy, 
Land. But it has to be — Jerusalem via Joppa. 
"Was your wife reconciled to her last sickness ?" 
asked a sympathetic inquirer. "She had to be. 
She vas dead." 

Joppa is not much more than a pile of stones 
in an orange grove today, but yesterday she was 
quite important. On one of those horns of rocks 
yonder Andromeda was chained; here Hiram, 
king of Tyre, floated his cedars of Lebanon for 
Solomon's Temple; there stands the house on 
whose top Peter prayed and saw a sheeted vision 
of charity ; later Constantine saw fit to make it 
the seat of the bishop's see; and last and worst. 
Napoleon stormed the city and slaughtered his 
Turkish prisoners. 

Joppa's streets (or alleys) are narrow and 
filled with camels, donkeys, beggars and 
smells. I went to the alleged house of Si- 
mon the tanner, dyed my hands in the vat, 
climbed to the roof and had my picture taken — 
my Peter's vision being the blue sea, the rocks, 
the stone-piled city and big steamer in the dis- 
tance. Courier Beyeres almost had a fist fight 



THE HOLY CITY. 85 

with a big boy who fell in love with me and 
wanted to be my guide. The discarded lover 
threw a stone at the boy I did hire to take me 
to the depot — depot because camels are out of 
date. Once aboard the train and seated by Jos- 
eph Finan, the chief of Lydia, we had cigarettes, 
flowers and big delicious oranges galore. I 
think I ate four dozen. But my big coat was 
missing — I knew I'd need it and could prove it. 
It was like Grimes — "all buttoned down be- 
fore." Just as the train was pulling out, 
a native rushed to my compartment, threw the 
coat to me, saying, "Givee goodee manee buck- 
sheesh," and I did, a shilling and got off cheap at 
that — and ate more oranges. 

Joppa is less than forty miles from Jerusalem 
but there are more than forty volumes of fra- 
grant history in that distance. 

Ex-American consul, Herbert Clark, pointed 
out gardens of golden oranges beyond the fabled 
Hesperides; Sharon's plain, fragrant with Bible 
roses and memories; Wely with a well called 
Abraham's fountain; Ramleh the ancient camel 
caravan turnpike road and later camping ground 
of Crusader and Napoleon; Askelon, and Gath 
of giant Sampson fame and brook of David's 
sling-stone story ; Lydda, where Peter healed the 
palsied Aeneas; Valley of Ajalon where the moon 



86 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Stood still and Joshua subdued the Amorites ; 
Neby Samwil, Samuel's birthplace and the site 
of ancient Mizpeh; Ain Karim, the birth place 
of John the Baptist; the Valley Kolonech, con- 
nected with the ark of triumpn; the road asso- 
ciated with Christ's walk with the disciples to 
Emmaus, pilgrimages of devout Israelites, tramp 
of Roman legions and cry of crusaders. Then 
came the city of song and story- — Jerusalem. 

We raced through the narrow streets of Jeru- 
salem till we came to Lloyd's German hotel 
where the weather strips were heaps of sand to 
keep the rain out and the stoves to warm and 
dry us were pagoda-looking porcelain things, and 
the piano had been thumped out of tune, and the 
cooking was good when you got it, for the hands 
were slow and "hasty pudding" was not on the 
bill of fare ; and my stone-floored, iron-grated, 
feather-blanketed, bolstered bedroom opened into 
an inner court filled with beautiful fragrant flow- 
ers, kept fresh and moist by rain which fell in- 
cessantly from a roofless square above, to the 
time of a male quartette of German voices which 
lulled me to rest in Vaterland airs. 

It's springtime in Jerusalem and the rain, "it 
raineth every day." My rubbers were on ship- 
board thirty miles away, with no Sheridan to 
bring them and no chance to buy any more. But 



THE HOLY CITY. 87 

I was in the Holy City and could afiford to have 
wet feet for a month or no feet at all ; just wings 
of curiosity would do, for, whether I was animal 
or angel, I could not tell. 

''Come," said my guide, Selim, a slim, shrewd, 
scholarly fellow, who was full of facts and knew 
how to impart them in half a dozen languages. 
"Come to the Jew's wailing place, for its Friday, 
the only day they cry." A stranger, sadder sight 
I never saw ; the old wall of the temple, the crev- 
ices filled with grass and flowers or nails and 
pebbles sent by devotees who could not come ; 
throngs of old and young, rich and poor, shabbily 
or royally dressed, hands filled with sacred books 
or psalter, reading, praying, crying, muttering, 
swaying to and fro, all lamenting the downfall 
and forsaken condition of their deserted city — 
all this made a picture time can never fade. The 
Jew has much to be proud of in religion, liter- 
ature, music, finance, philosophy, drama and phil- 
anthropy. My prayer is that they may see Christ 
as the fulfillment of the Hope of Israel, and that 
Jew-bating, and anti-Semitic prejudices may ev- 
erywhere cease. 

More rain (indignant tears over our party), 
so I took a longer rest at the hotel, played the 
piano for the landlord's daughter until the tour- 
ists, tired of my music, left without me. Be- 



88 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

lieving I could easily find them, I started to 
Howard's hotel. Not there. Throug'h the New 
Gate to the Franciscan convent. Not there. In 
and out of the shops and stores. Not there. 
Until mortified to desperation I went back to the 
office and Mr. Clark furnished me with another 
guide who steered me through the slime and 
stench of what he called the best way to Omar's 
mosc|ue, whither the party were headed and 
where I found them listening to a lecture. I got 
one I didn't relish. Moral : Don't procrastinate 
and don't think you can "go it alone" through 
the Old and New Jerusalem. You may get left 
and lost. 

I walked the streets of this city, followed by 
donkeys as large as dogs, with big Turks or 
Jews astride and digging calloused heels into the 
little fellow's sides ; entered stores filled with 
fruits and vegetables, long loaves of dirty looking 
bread, old shoes, amber beads, ornaments of olive 
wood, incense and crucifixes. David is the lead- 
ing street, filled with bazaars and beggars, don- 
keys and dirt, camels and cats, tourists and 
Turks. In the absence of a board of trade, I 
went to the corn market. My guide said they 
would give, "good measure" and shake it down 
to "overflowing" according to the Scripture. 
They failed to connect that day, for at the cor- 



THE HOLY CITY. 89 

ner of David and Christian street my friend went 
in to change one pound and got fifteen counter- 
feits out of twenty pieces. It is a common pro- 
verb in the east that, "a Greek will get the better 
of ten Europeans, a Jew will beat ten Greeks, an 
Armenian equals ten Jews and a Syrian is more 
than a match for Greek, Jew and Armenian to- 
gether." I believe it. 

Via Doloroso, sorrowful way, is the name of 
a rough, narrow street filled with ancient arches 
and houses said to be associated with our Lord's 
last Journey. Of course, it isn't, for the street 
is only six hundred years old, but in a true sense 
most of the streets in Jerusalem are "sorrowful" 
ways, whether you tramp them in wet or dry 
weather, by daylight or at night, in absence of 
street-lights carrying a lantern in Oriental dark- 
ness, groping between narrow walks, filthy curbs, 
greasy boxes and beasts. What a city! No 
cheerful libraries, clubs, concert halls or any- 
thing of the kind before or after 7 o'clock. Think 
of a "Thousand and One Nights" in such a place. 

The money changers are here as in former 
days, but my money changes hands soon enough 
without help from them. I met Mr. Shylock and 
he still wants his "pound of flesh." I wanted a 
widow's mite, handed him a franc, expecting a 
mite and a half franc in return. Instead of that 



90 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

he wanted another franc. I regard the mite as 
a valuable souvenir. I wish I could speak Vola- 
puk and that Volapuk was English, for its all 
very fine to air your French and German, but 
when you want to make a bargain, English is the 
real thing. I am so earnest about this that I've 
dipped my pen in Turkish coffee. "Amen" to 
the litany "have mercy upon all Turks, infidels 
and heretics and take from them all hardness of 
heart." 

Yet it is difficult for even an American always 
to carry the jewel of consistency across the sea. 
Mr. Blank goes with me to Jaffa Gate and buys 
some phylacteries. Mr. Blank is a Sunday school 
teacher and wants souvenirs for his class, but 
wants them cheap. The dealer is in a kind of 
syndicate and says he cannot cut the price on 
those pictures and things. Mr. S. S. man says, 
"No one will know it." Mr. Heathen looks him 
in the eye, points to his heart, and says, ''I will 
know it." 

I visited the German Church of the Redeemer. 
The beadle spoke of King William's generosity, 
showed me his royal signature in the big Bible 
and, noticing my covetous gaze at the big Berlin 
organ, asked me if I wanted to play. Yes, I did, 
and I got there with both hands and feet. It 
was a different make from any I had ever tried 



THE HOLY CITY. 91 

before but I experimented with some of the stops 
and pedals, and growing confident, added others, 
turned on the big swell center wheel until the 
arches rang with "America," "Doxology" and 
"Dixie." This was formerly the hospital of St. 
John; what the old buried knights of the elev- 
enth century thought of my performance I did 
not wait to learn. 

"Walk about Zion." I did in about an hour, 
for it was only about two and a half miles. What 
a fortress with foundation and walls of stone! 
"Count the towers thereof." I did that, too, for 
awhile, until they grew too many, admiring most 
the massive masonry of David's tower, a mon- 
ument of age and strength. "Mark ye well her 
bulwarks" — if that may be translated "gates" ac- 
cording to the revision or accommodation which 
preachers practice, I found seven, five open and 
two shut, and all of them more or less remark- 
able. 

"Consider her palaces" — one of them is the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I believe in all the 
historic facts of Scripture but not the specious 
shows collected under this domed, Byzantine 
roof. The Stone of Unction ; Station of Mary ; 
Holy Selpuchre; Rod of Moses; Column of 
Scourging; Bonds and Prison of Christ; Chapel 
of Vestments; Chapel of the Finding of the 



92 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Cross; Chapel of the Crown of Thorns; column 
marking the center of the earth ; Calvary ; Tomb 
of Melchizedek ; Chapel of St. Helena where the 
Basilica of St. Constantine once stood; tomb, 
sword and spurs of Godfrey de Bouillon. These 
last two places were of interest because of prob- 
able truth. Concerning the other sights enum- 
erated, I looked and listened but was utterly 
skeptical. 

Do not misunderstand me ; I was reverent and 
thoughtful ; I listened to all that was said and 
looked at all that was pointed out; I gave alms 
when asked and where it was not expected; I 
was moved with sympathy towards the pilgrims 
who were there at the cost of life earnings and 
home associations ; I saw youth and age, beauty 
and deformity, standing, kneeling, crying, smil- 
ing, praying and prostrate beyond anything I had 
read, heard or seen in fact or fancy, but I did 
not ^and I could not and I will not believe in the 
local A to Z of our Lord's suffering which is col- 
lected and classified in this church. 

The Mosque of Omar is the other "palace;" it 
is a beautiful thing and you have seen pictures 
of its inside and outside. There are many Jew- 
ish, Moslem and Christian legends connected 
with the "Dome of the Rock," in fact some of 
the rockiest legends I have ever heard. I gazed 



THE HOLY CITV. $3 

in the Well of Spirits whence dead Moslems are 
to be dragged up to Paradise by the hair on 
their heads and felt that if hair was necessary 
my bald scalp was a strong argument against my 
accepting the Moslem faith. I wandered over to 
the Sacred Slab, where the Devil knocked nine- 
teen nails into the stone. But three and one-half 
remain. When these go, the world ends. The 
kneeling priest implored alms and said what 
translated meant "You'll go to hell if you don't 
put some money down." I replied with my 
Bible, "Go too thou," but relented and fear no 
immediate danger of collapse. 

Solomon's quarries are still the Mecca of de- 
vout Masons. I was secretary of a meeting on 
the ship that took up a good collection for the R. 
S. mother lodge of Jerusalem. The kindness 
was appreciated and a meeting was arranged 
for the traveling Masons in the quarry. Asked 
to address the lodge in this historic spot, I com- 
plied; my interpreter must have improved upon 
what I said, for they gave me three beautiful 
gavels which I presented the K. T., the Chapter 
and Blue Lodge of Owensboro, Ky. These 
quarries resemble the Mammoth cave in some 
respects with their boulders, ravines and im- 
mense slabs of stone. The ancients quarried by 
drilling holes, inserting wedges of wood which 



94 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

when wet swelled and pressed out the stone. I 
remember a spring- of water in this cave because 
it tasted salt and because I slipped and fell in 
the mud. 

With my brother Masons I had my picture 
taken in a group at the entrance of the quarry 
with the foundation stones of the old wall for a 
background. The sun was shining, I failed to 
remove my glasses so that I look like a wall- 
eyed pike — not the Grand Commander, Albert 
Pike. 

I had repeated conversation with some citizens 
of Jerusalem who complained of lack of protection 
from the American consul and government, and 
wanted a representative appointed who would 
think more of American citizens and less of 
black coffee with Turkish officials. During the 
Armenian massacre Americans in Jerusalem had 
no protection from the American government 
until they made a big kick through the American 
newspapers. It's a shame that Americans are 
at the worst possible advantage in Jerusalem. 

Eight years ago the American cemetery on 
Zion was "desecrated" and sold to the 
French, who dug up and threw out the 
bones of some great men with their families. 
The Jews own Olivet today and you may buy a 
simple grave on its slope for $250. I didn't 



THE HOLY CITY. 95 

take one. America is good enough for me. 

It is still raining and we splash and slip with 
great discomfort. But when we learned how 
much this rain meant to the natives, we stopped 
complaining and said, "The Lord reigneth, let 
Him do what seemeth good in His sight." In 

February, 1899, there were twenty-five inches 
less rain than February, 1900. For four months 
the city was almost without water. The poor 
had to pay three piastres, fifteen cents, for a skin 
of good water. When they only made six pias- 
tres a day it didn't leave much for solid refresh- 
ment. Still, even in America, I've known a 
man's bill to be more for drink than food or 
clothes. 

"If I forget thee, O, Jerusalem, let my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth." I shall 
not forget thy Oriental, Gothic, Byzantine and 
Italian architecture, or thy Orientally costumed 
natives, fur-capped Jews, white-capped women, 
robe-padded Russians, long-haired Greeks, 
hooded Armenians, fezzed Turks and outland- 
ish tourists — or the days of thy early glory, when 
vineyards, terraced hillsides of corn and grain 
made thee the city of milk and honey. 

Jerusalem, thou art indeed the most historic 
and holy city in all the world. No wonder the 
Old Crusaders wept for joy when they saw the 



g6 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT, 

sacred city of Abraham, David, Solomon and 
Christ. There's an Oriental proverb that the 
worst Moslems go to Mecca and the worst Chris- 
tians are those who have been to Jerusalem. I 
hope not. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SCENES IN SAMARIA. 

"Saddle me the ass, and they saddled HIM," 
was the professor's misaccented Scripture. To 
avoid such a mistake, I said : "My kingdom for 
a horse," and on the principle that you get what 
you pay for, I was assigned an animal with a tail 
as short as a preacher's bank account and a 
neck as long as a weak sister's tongue. 

I had prided myself with knowing something 
about horses. A plow horse once ran away with 
me and scratched me off under an apple tree, 
where I would have remained like Absolom if I 
had not thus early given proof of baldness. To- 
day my back bears the harrowing mark of this 
J'ohn Gilpin ride. Later a pig ran under my 
horse while I was talking with a neighbor's 
daughter. He was off before I was fairly on and 
as a hay wagon loomed up in the distance, 1 



SCENES IN SAMARIA. 97 

trusted to luck and threw myself into the road; 
when I got up I looked very much like a zebra. 
Some years ago, in California, I tried to ride a 
mustang. As a tenderfoot I was not familiar 
with a cowboy's tactics. The more I said 
"Whoa" and pulled back, the faster he went, 
until from sheer exhaustion I dropped the lines 
and he stopped. "Similia similibus curantur" 
and a liniment by the same name restored me to 
my usual health. In Minneapolis I had a horse, 
Fred, well known on the Harriet speedway in 
summer, and Lake of the Isles in winter, with a 
record of 2:223^, which wasn't bad, though a 
park policeman thought so and told me that if 
I drove that way he would have to run me in. 
You see the ruling passion for horses was strong 
in Samaria and I fell into my saddle as naturally 
and easily as Silas Wegg used to drop into 
poetry. 

But the first thing my beautiful Arab steed did 
was to suddenly throw back his head with the 
force of a battering ram. He hit my forehead 
and I was so dazed and dumb that for a long 
time I could only utter a word of one syllable. 
This was one of his peculiarities and for a week 
through Samaria and Galilee I had to learn to 
suddenly shift right and left so that when he re- 
peated his headstrong habit he might just brush 



gg TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

my ears with his. The second thing he did was 
to take fright at a Jew, who was carrying a ton 
of lumber 'on his head, and run me into a bake 
shop, where the proprietor called me down with 
a "Howajji," to which I replied: "Very well, 
how are you?" These men of Palestine have 
been known to carry a piano on their backs. 
They are good burden-bearers and might be 
serviceable in some Gentile churches where har- 
mony does not always prevail. 

I wish you could have seen our party. It was 
composed of men and women, short and tall, fat 
and lean, blonde and brunette, with goggles, 
green umbrellas and white flopping veils around 
their hats (to keep the sun off), and flapping 
down their backs like pigeon wings. Sitting 
aside or astride, as many of the ladies did, with 
their feet, stuck in short stirrups, they looked as 
if they were frogs ready to jump. It was a sight 
calculated to knock the camera crazy with as- 
tonishment. 

We had a big party, consisting of one hun- 
dred and twenty-two horses, thirty-seven mules, 
nineteen donkeys, fourteen waiters, forty-three 
tent boys and baggagemen, six dragomen, twen- 
ty-two tents, seventy-one touri&ts and a palan- 
quin which headed the party like the old ark of 
the covenant. I had a big dragoman, whose 



SCENES IN SAMARIA. 99 

name was "Salah," six feet four inches high, 
weighed two hundred and fifty-six pounds 
and twice as much in kindness and in- 
telligence. He was tall, straight, brown 
as a berry, wore a yellowish tasseled scarf 
wound around his head, a drab silk jacket, 
a gorgeous girdle, baggy blue breeches, high top 
boots, and was armed with a horse pistol, a 
cheese-knife-shaped scimitar that made your 
blood thicken. Mounted on a little pony that 
no one else could ride because he was so vicious, 
he led us forth over hill, through valley, and the 
cultivated fields of the natives whenever we could 
make a short cut. 

I was sorry to leave Jerusalem, but I prayed 
for its "peace" as I passed a guide whose chief 
object in life Vv'as to get ahead, and was fighting a 
fat woman, whom he had helped into the saddle, 
for money. "Money makes the mare go." The 
golden calf is still worshipped, and when the 
good missionary comes here and ofTers a gos- 
pel, "without money and without price," the 
people are surprised, think it must be worthless, 
and so reject it. 

Outside the walls we saw many places which 
made us feel, with Carlyle, "Let silence meditate 
that sacred matter." It did, for fickle human na- 
ture is ofifset by abiding nature, W'hose geography 

L.cfC. 



100 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

remains while men come and go. The country 
lay before us, a commentary on our Old and 
New Testament, and pleasure-seeking for the 
present was lost in the far sacred past. 

Dismounting at Gethsemane, I entered the 
garden of agony; Avalked through it silent and 
alone. As I left, an old Franciscan monk gave 
me a handful of flowers and leaves from the old 
olive trees. Thinking this place and Gordon's 
cavalry yonder might be the true sites of suffer- 
ing and crucifixion, I was startled by a piteous 
plea for alms by eyeless, noseless, fingerless, toe- 
less men and women, whose poor condition 
would melt a heart of stone. 

We climbed Olivet's summit and entered a 
chapel in whose stone floor was an alleged foot 
print made by the Savior at His ascension. Dis- 
gusted with its unseemly size and the supersti- 
tion, we went out and climbed a minaret with a 
tourist's spirit as sacrilegious as a Miohamme- 
dan's sneer, and looked out upon the wide sweep 
of the Holy City and the hilly country. 

Beyond Olivet we were nearly run over by a 
train of a hundred camels, loaded with sacks and 
swinging and stilting along with a "get-out-'of- 
the-way" air, like a locomotive. We moved, for 
the camel can walk over your little horse and not 
strain himself at all. I Hke the camel; he is 



SCENES IN SAMARIA. loi 

homely but very handy, and said to carry a well 
of water inside him. I have never seen him 
drink, but I've watched him eat a bushel of this- 
tles, any sticker of which was worse than a darn- 
ing needle, and he seemed to enjoy every moutn- 
ful. 

Bethany has the traditional home of Martha 
and the tomb of Lazarus. It used to be a quiet, 
delightful city, but from the time I entered it I 
was followed by a crowd of blear-eyed rag-bags 
who bombarded me with, "Tombo Lazarus — 
bucksheesh,bucksheesh — tombo Lazarus." Even 
the dogs looked mean and barked bucksheesh, 
and little babies who could not talk stretched 
out their filthy fingers and lisped, "Sheesh." 

Was this the Well of the Magi, where weary 
they paused and saw the star reflected 
which led to the Manger? Is this domed struct- 
ure the tomb of the sweet, sad Rachel? No 
doubt, according to the belief of Jew, Moslem 
and Christian. Yonder in picturesque setting 
was the birth-place of David and David's Son 
and Saviour. The Convent of the Nativity, with 
its star-marked manger; tomb of St. Jerome, 
Paula and Eudosia; Pit of Slaughtered Inno- 
cents; Milk Grotto, House of Joseph, and near- 
by Shepherd's field, David's Well and Cave of 
Adullam. 



102 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Bethlehem's historic and holy star was shining 
for us on a Christian and industrious community, 
which makes stars, crosses, chains, beads and 
boxes of olive wood and mother of pearl, and a 
very excellent wine. 

I knew the Pools of Solomon were larger than 
the Helena plunge. But, like Mother Hub- 
bard's cupboard, there was nothing in them. The 
pools could be put to use today and I learned a 
philanthropic woman offered to repair them, but 
the sulky sultan said "No." No modern im- 
provements need apply. I explored the Lower, 
Middle and Upper pools. They are of magnif- 
icent shape, size and preservation. The lower 
could float one of our big ships and the others 
would make a fine ' 'swimmin' hole"f or small boys. 

Hebron is the oldest town in the world and 
means "alliance" or "friendship." Abraham 
lived here and entertained the heavenly 
visitors before we came. Absalom used tO' 
play on its streets, and I'm not surprised he 
turned out bad. We were not allowed to enter 
the Cave of Macpelah, in which Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob are buried; we only wanted to see it, 
and on our way the natives threw stones at us, 
made faces and insulting remarks to the ladies, 
and if it had not been for our Sheik, would have 
beaten us with sticks. 



SCENES IN SAMARIA. 103 

I felt like giving them their medicine in the 
pool of Hebron, where David hung the lifeless 
bodies of Saul's murderers, or taking them out 
to Abraham's oaks at Mamre and holding their 
stiff necked judgment in suspense, or banishing 
them from the land as Abraham did Hagar. With 
new meaning we sang Hebron, "Thus far the 
Lord hath led me on," in the dining room, up- 
stairs, over a stenchful stable. The sheik rushed 
telling us to keep still for our singing 
had attracted the hoodlum rabble outside, who 
threatened vengeance. But what could you ex- 
pect in the town of Joab, who murdered Abner 
and where Jacob deceived; and we rent our 
clothes ? 

Hostelries! "Weariness can snore on flint," 
but some resting places were darker than 
Egypt and drearier than a sepulchre. One of 
them that I recall would make a good grave for 
Lazarus or a clifif for a cave-dweller. But life's 
law is compensation and one must get real tired 
to enjoy a real rest. 

The distance from Jerusalem to Jericho is 
about eight hours. That is the way they reckon 
distance here, so it is long or short according to 
the conveyance. Jordan used to be a hard road 
to travel, but a princess who met with an acci- 



104 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

dent on her journey gave a thousand pounds 
for good roads so we fared better. 

I was always sorry for the young man who 
was held up, and while it is easier and safer to- 
day, one meets with surprising experiences. The 
Apostle's Rest is remembered. At the foot of 
the hill which I raced down for exercise, leaping 
over rocks like a chamois, I came up to the door 
of the inn and was met by an Oriental who said, 
"Whisk, whisk." Did I look like a Kentucky 
colonel? My dress was semi-clerical and the 
red on my nose was oriental sunshine and noth- 
ing more. My driver came to investigate, took 
the proffered drink, performed a dance and 
smoked a narghili ; so 1 think they mistook me 
for one of their brethren. One of my 
companions will also remember this Jericho 
drive, for he lost his note-book of months' keep- 
ing; worried about it all the way from Jerusa- 
lem; sent an Arab to look for it along the road, 
and later found it where he had left it in his 
room at the hotel. My accommodating driver, 
after he had watered the horses, picked up a 
chicken, running in his way ; put it in his blouse ; 
sat on its head until it was dead, and later se- 
lected a wooded camp, where he dressed and 
roasted it. 

We came to the place of the Good Samaritan, 



SCENES IN SAMARIA. 105 

where I found material for a new sermon. You 
see, I wanted a bottle to put some Jordan water 
in, so I purchased a bottle of lemonade for ten 
cents, but after I drank the vile stuff they wanted 
the bottle back or ten cents extra. That's the 
reason I haven't any sacred water to give my 
Paedobaptist friends. On my return, I got even 
with this cheating fellow. He kissed and fondled 
his horse in true Arab style. I smiled and drew 
out my American flag. He went to the inn and 
brought out a Turkish flag on a pole, floated it 
and asked for mine. I said "No," reached for 
his, and laughingly put mine above the crescent. 
His reply was a look that would have meant mis- 
chief if Selim had not excused me, saying I was 
"big American." That was literally true, but 
then I love the flag and what it represents and 
long for its elevation and extension everywhere. 
Jericho used to be a city of the first class. Eli- 
jah lived here and the fountain Elisha sweetened 
still sparkles with cool water for man and beast. 
Later Herod built and beautified the city. It had 
gardens and groves and mad Anthony gave 
them to his sweetheart, Cleopatra. But if I had 
to live here today on this rubbish heap or in the 
tower they call Zaccheus' house, I'd hunt a syca- 
more tree and fasten a rope to it and to my neck 
and cut loose. 



io6 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

We have been looking for the "land flowing 
with milk and honey," where the turtle's 
voice announces soup for supper, but it is a 
mockery. With slight variations in the order on 
the bill of fare, it is lamb, ram, sheep and mutton, 
goat-milk, camel's hair and butter, spring water 
and oranges. At Jericho my friend, R., covered 
his shoes with holy mud which he would not al- 
low to be blacked or scraped off, but intended to 
carry back with other sacred souvenirs to Kan- 
sas City. Naturally, the traveler develops into a 
curio-hunter, a stone-cutter and vandal in gen- 
eral. We had broken and brought spemimens 
enough to require an extra stateroom, and 
dreaded the customhouse officer in Boston who 
would eye us to see whether Mr. Gotrox was on 
board. 

The Brook Cherith was a gorgeous affair. The 
deep ravine, colored rocks, huts of hermits, 
perching like a martin's box, looked very odd. 
Men come here and go away, but the brook mur- 
murs forever the story of the prophet Elijah, and 
sleepless care of Providence. Pbe's weird raven 
story took a new interest from Elijah's rocky 
summer resort. 

Half dead with fatigue we reached the Dead 
Sea and found it alive with Jordan's overflow. 
We viewed it as Moses did the Promised Land. 



SCENES IN SAMARIA. 107 

I had enjoyed a Salt Lake experience with Spur- 
geon's son and knew what salt water tasted and 
felt like when it filled your moiith and eyes. It 
is so salt it flavors the apples of Sodom on its 
banks with a "seal brown" taste a man is said 
to wake up with after a champagne dinner. 

Dead Sea water is eight times Salter 
than other water. It is a low body anyway, 
three thousand feet below sea level and is asso- 
ciated with Sodom and Gomorrah. What val- 
uable real estate we saw here has long ago been 
retired from the market. The whole country 
seems a monument of desolation. 

We sang, "By Jordan's Stormy Banks I 
Stand." The river was higher than it had been 
for fifty years and was so dirty and dangerous 
that we could neither fish nor swim in it. It 
staggers two hundred miles to make sixty miles 
between Galilee and the Dead Sea. Its story 
flows straight through Old and New Testament 
history with a fascination to every creed and 
clime. We bathed our dirty hands and faces in 
it, then drank of it, took a row boat and went to 
the traditoinal point of Israel's crossing and 
Christ's baptism. After the crowd had gone, I 
remained with Dr. Courtland Myers of the 
Brooklyn Tabernacle, who baptized his little 
eight-year-old son. 



io8 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

We had climbed over rocks enough to pave all 
Europe. In stumbling over them I had met so 
many social natives that I invented a greeting 
upon which I have a patent right. It was 
"Salam bucksheesh, your royal nibs." The 
first words always made them bow and ges- 
ture; the second caused them to look up in a 
knowing way, while the last sounded so well, 
that they took it for a compliment and passed 
contentedly on. 

At Ram-Allah, Hill of God, I found the Amer- 
ican Friend's mission. A big American flag float- 
ed from the roof. I walked through the beautiful 
grounds, up the steps, into the parlor and kitch- 
en, where I startled the cook speechless. The 
building is spacious and complete every way. We 
went into the chapel, where twenty-six fair- 
faced, black-eyed girls looked at us and we at 
them. The teacher said they were, "Sweet, good 
girls, respected and sought for as wives." We 
took her word for it. They sang a song and with 
a rising note at the close of each stanza, so I 
wondered where it would end. I didn't quite 
get the words any more than the tune and asked 
the teacher what they said. "Oh," replied she, 
"they greeted you in English. Didn't you un- 
derstand?" Of course I did then and, said, 



SCENES IN SAMARIA. 109 

"Yes." Then they repeated the Twenty-third 
Psalm in native speech. 

Tired, I sought the convent, ate a good dinner, 
told stories, looked at Mizpeh veiled in garb of 
setting sun, and went to bed. 

With Clarence I "passed a miserable night" 
on a three sectioned Procustes' bed whose dif- 
ferent levels left me decorated like a broiled 
steak. My company was good, but not the cot, 
yet this was a palatial hotel to some of the na- 
tive houses with their vermin covered floor on 
which donkies, goats, and a more wretched hu- 
manity struggled for rest. 

I had dreamed, sung and preached of Bethel, 
but found it a poor little village on a poor lit- 
tle hill with some few natives. The soil was so 
rocky and poor that even the long patient vine 
and olive could not endure it and had bidden it 
farewell. Abraham reared an altar here and Ja- 
cob had a boulder for a bolster. It lies in ruins 
but is rich in rocks and could furnish stone 
bruises for all the bare-footed boys in Palestine. 

One gets frightfully thirsty riding in 
the holy land. There are no cold bottles 
of anything and the water is stale and 
flat. Robber's Fountain had a reputation 
for good water. Unterrified we raced to- 
ward it mid picturesque scenery of olive 



no TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

wood, pink, yellow and white flowers, passing 
native women with great bundles of brush on 
their heads for fuel, who were struggling along 
worse than beasts of burden. Just beyond 
we rested at a kind of oasis, in a green 
enclosure, where the tablecloth was spread up- 
on a stone. At our feet there was a big pool in 
which the women were doing a family washing 
by pounding the clothes on a rock. We lunched 
with good appetite and digestion, but it made 
us feel bad to be surrounded by a crowd of sad 
eyed women and hungry children who watched 
every mouthful and waited for a crust or crumb 
like a starving dog or cat. More than once we 
left them as much as we ate; sometimes for 
charity, sometimes because they were so- dirty 
and festooned and frescoed with flies, dirt and 
sore eyes. 

These sons of Abraham still plow with a stick 
and tickle the soil and raise a sickly smile of 
grain, cut it with a knife or pull it up by hand, 
dry it, tread it, let the wind blow through its 
chaflf, leaving the grain behind. Other lands 
change, but Palestine lives the same in its peo- 
ple, practice, employment and building. It is 
a bare, bouldery, blistering land. Shepherds 
charm their flocks with a reed whose music com- 
pares well with the sound of a nail scratched on 



SCENES IN SAMARIA. in 

a pane of glass. Here was a picture of natives 
walking with bare, sandaled feet, driving and 
riding camels and donkeys. Yonder a field where 
the father and his family were kneeling in the 
wheat pulling out the tares, the mother being 
near her babe which was sleeping in a cradle 
shaped like a camel's saddle. 

Jacob's well continues to do business at the 
old stand. It must have been originally intended 
as a reservoir, for in spite of the debris of years 
it is more than ninety feet deep and nine feet in 
diameter, cut in the living rock. The water was 
cool, sweet and refreshing, and we halted in the 
little adjacent garden, talking over its history 
of Jacob's and the Savior's time. I met here a 
Turk who acted very strangely. Cigarettes 
had made him nervous and he kept play- 
ing with a string of beads. His conduct must 
have frightened my partner's horse, for he threw 
her ofif and kicked after she was down, and how 
she escaped being killed, we never know. 

Shechem is beautifully situated with its 
MountEbal and Gerizim. Yonder is the Samar- 
itan convent with its famous codex Pentateuch 
manuscript and large mosque, and a Baptist 
church of twenty-two members. The natives 
hate the Christians, The camping party was 
made to pay a circus lot privilege for tarrying 



112 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

but a night. One of our convent party had for- 
gotten his passport, but a few francs bribed the 
Turkish officer to swear that it was O. K. Our 
ex-American consul, Gen. Lew Wallace, fared 
worse some years ago; he was minus his pass- 
port 'or money or something and was detained 
six hours until permission was telegraphed from 
Constantinople allowing him to go. We enjoyed 
the rest and the refreshment of the Catholic con- 
vent. The Fathers were kind, the fare was good, 
and the rooms were large. 

I talked to the Fathers through an interpreter. 
My English companion spoke in French to the 
host, who turned to Father F. and said, "TeU 
him to talk in French, I don't understand Eng- 
lish." That night I heard strange sounds and 
woke to hear my friend talk French with the 
most approved Parisian accent. 

Samaria stands for sickness and smells. A 
pile of dirt, disease, cactus and ruined columns. 
Infamous Ahab lived here and ran a Daphne 
grove. Herod built some fine palaces later. One 
of our party was a little mdisposed; Dr. S. pre- 
scribed for him, and in ten minutes the whole 
town had brought its halt, lame and blind for 
treatment. Here is a fine opening for a young 
doctor and a large practice warranted with op- 
portunity to increase the death rate, 



SCENES IN SAMARIA. 113 

Samaria is one of the three old divisions of 
the Holy Land, with Galilee on the North, Judea 
on the South, Jordan on the East and the Medit- 
erranean on the West. Its hills were less bare 
than those of Judea, and its valleys and plains 
were more generally cultivated and fruitful. 

Near Dothan, Elijah prayed for blindness to 
come on the people. Some of their blind de- 
scendants were bathing in a well said to have 
been the once dry one Joseph was put in dur- 
ing the dry season before being s'old into Egypt. 
A rock descent brought us to a beautiful, but 
miserable village, Jenin, Fountain of Gardens. 
It's a place that I associate with kicking horses, 
convent arches, half-burnt candles, a poor sup- 
per, flea-bitten dogs, sore-eyed children, the call 
of the Muezzin overhead, and a kind of banjo 
serenade next door. 

Jezreel was a barn yard, a ratty, wretched 
hole, filled with beggars, and store supplies. 
Surely there is something in a name and you 
might as well hang a dog as give him a bad 
name. The town is associated with Jezebel who 
Vvas thrown out of the tower for dog meat. I 
saw the tower, the children threw stones at us 
and I was sorry that we had no gattling gun to 
reply with. The fountain of Jezreel is where 
the three hundred men lapped water like a dog. 



114 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

The valley of Jezereel is remembered for Ahab's 
palace, of which no trace remains; Naboth's 
vineyards; Jehu's fast driving and Gideon's vic- 
tory over the Midianites. 

Burka-Dothan, Jenin, Jezreel, are all of a 
kind. We came and saw and were conquered 
by swarms of vermin and vagabonds. The most 
fitting thing I could say was from Byron: "Fare- 
well, dear, damned, distracted town." 



CHx^PTER X. 
GALILEE AND ITS SACRED REMINISCENCE. 

Galilee in our Lord's time occupied all the 
northern part of Palestine West of the Jordan 
and North of Samaria. Its people were brave 
and industrious but held in poor repute. The 
Savior spent thirty years of his life among its 
cities. The term "Galilean" was one of reproach 
and the apostate emperor Julian in the agony of 
his death cried, "O Galilean, thou hast con- 
quered." 

Gilboa introduced us to Galilee and stood 
sentinel over the plain of Esdraelon and the val- 
ley of the Jordan. The mountain was bleak but 
bright in Bible history. I opened my Bible and 



GALILEE 115 

read how Saul and Jonathan were defeated by 
the PhiHstines. David uttered an "In Memoriam" 
on the death of his friend which is subHme as 
it is sweet, "Saul and Jonathan were lovely and 
pleasant in their lives and in their death they 
were not divided; I am distressed for thee, my 
brother Jonathan, thy love to me was wonder- 
ful, passing the love of women. How are the 
mighty fallen." 

We came to Shunem, with its dung decorated 
walls and worse than Chinatown atmosphere. 
Here the woman lived who was friendly to 
Elisha who had saved her son. If it smelt then 
as it did when we were there I wonder that 
Elisha found anyone alive when he visited the 
town. 

Nain ana Endor near by looked weird and 
wicked. Visions of Saul's witch and thoughts 
of Macbeth's cauldron floated before our minds 
and we believed with Riley, "the Gobble-uns '11 
git you, ef you don't watch out." 

Like night to light in contrast were Tabor 
and Little Hermon verdure-clad, sunlit, baptized 
with Bible glory. 

The Plain of Esdraelon has been dyed with 
soldier's blood from the days of Barak to Na- 
poleon. It was wet with mud when we crossed 
it; the horses were nearly mired. One poor lit- 



Ii6 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

tie donkey was almost buried alive, burden and 
all, and when his driver got him out, he cursed 
him, beat him and stuck a big knife in his sides 
and shoulders. I angrily complained to the 
guide, who simply said: "Donkey cheap. He 
get more. No good fight him." 

Next to Jerusalem, Nazareth is the most fas- 
cinating city in Palestine, — picturesque with 
clififs, oaks, Cyprus, minarets, convents and 
houses. The proverbial kindness of the people, 
beauty of the women and cleanliness of the city 
did not disappoint us. I saw a wedding proces- 
sion, scores of men and women clapping their 
hands and twO' sword-dancers amusing the 
crowd. They had been at this kind of perform- 
ance for a week or more and were expected to 
jolly the groom some days longer before he met 
his bride and made her his wife. Poor fellow, 
I thought, it will be easy for your wife to manage 
you after all this. It was a kind of "Taming of 
the Shrew" reversed. For a long time the au- 
thorities have tried, in vain, to suppress this kind 
of pre-nuptial demonstration. It's lots of fun 
but, like the frog fable, for the boys and not the 
unfortunate frogs. 

I had read about and seen pictures of Ori- 
ental kissing. I suppose if one must kiss, the 
best thing to do is to kiss the best looking per- 



GALILEE 117 

son, who, outside of our party, was generally a 
man. In Nazareth it was a little different. The 
girls and women were very attractive and I was 
not surprised when a bachelor friend said, "Look 
at those lips, wouldn't you like to kiss them?" 
The girls were pretty, with a little loose-looking 
flour bag that served for full dress, bare feet, 
brass bracelets, wealth of old coins and a grace 
and smile more valuable than all. 

Of Nazareth we may forget many things, 
but not the Latin convent with its church of the 
Annunciation, with its beautiful French picture, 
roll of organ, of voices, kneeling children and 
teachers near by. Our hearts rose, our eyes 
filled with tears, and our lips said, "Amen." 1 
saw the alleged workshop of Joseph, table of 
Christ, school where He studied, house where 
He lived and synagogue where He taught. I 
questioned the locality, but not the historical 
facts of the divine boy and man whose sinless 
years were spent beneath the Syrian blue. The 
Protestant church welcomed us. The girls' or- 
phanage appealed to our charity; the Fountain 
flowed full and free for us and our horses; and 
we witnessed the immemorial custom of the vil- 
lage girls dressed white and looking bright, fill- 
ing jars and pitchers of water and carrying them 
on their heads. 



ii8 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

I held prayer service that Sabbath night. 
The German keeper's family were there in force 
to play the organ and lead the music. I spoke 
on, "Our Lord's Life in Nazareth." The subject, 
time and occasion are indelibly impressed. 

Cana, the scene of Christ's miracle, is a tum- 
ble-down village with a few hundred inhabitants. 
We lunched on the curb and drank from the well. 

In this well at Cana, from which the watering 
pots were filled in the olden time, I found a big, 
old eel. One of our party just touched him 
with his cane, whereupon Mr. Eel immediately 
turned to one side and was apparently dead. 
Soon an angry crowd collected, and the children 
cried, for the eel was an old-time friend and pet. 
A boy pointed out the meddlesome tourist to 
the old sheik who looked as if he would punish 
him with his crook. Just then the eel took a. 
wiggle to himself, fell over on his right side 
again and all was merry as a marriage bell. 
Were it not slang, one might say. Doesn't it 
"jar you" to see the original firkins or waterpots 
that were filled with good wedding wine at that 
early memorable marriage. 

Near this historic spot, not being a rough 
rider, I performed a feat only equalled by Alex- 
ander or Mazeppa. We had overtaken the first 
party and I raced my Arab steed, with the flag 



GALILEE 119 

flapping from my umbrella handle, tucked in my 
riding boot. I slowed down, the winner, and my 
horse stepped from a ledge of rock to a smooth 
piece of road, which suddenly gave way and left 
his forelegs deep in the mud. Of course I lost 
my balance, rolled, and went head over heels. I 
quickly kicked my feet out of the stirrups, then 
tried to get up. He did it, too, at the same time, 
striking out with his feet and missing my head, 
which lay between them, by a fraction of an 
inch. It was all the work of an instant. Men 
held their breath for fear, and one woman al- 
most fainted, but I got up unhurt, plastered with 
mud. My Bucephalus ran away a short distance , 
#nd then waited for me to come up and mount. 

We reached Tiberias with its Herod's baths, 
Jewish quarters, Greek church and convent. 
From my window I saw gardens of palms and 
doorways filled with pretty faces, which were 
willing to smile like American sisters. 

Tiberias, the modern, offered us the shelter of 
the Franciscan Hospital. From its windows we 
saw the Greek church, Jewish quarters, old cas- 
tle, Herod's baths, and ruins of a wall tumbled 
down by an earthquake, which destroyed half the 
population in 1837. Back of us were the moun- 
tains ; before us, the sea ; from my window I saw 
a garden of palms and a casement filled with 



I20 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

childish faces. I witnessed a beautiful sunrise on 
Galilee and took pictures from the housetops, 
including early morning scenes of bathing, dress- 
ing and eating. Now, as in Solomon's days, 
fools' eyes wander to the ends of the earth. Lat- 
er in the day, when two men rudely demanded 
bucksheesh from me, for fear that they might 
be relatives or lovers of the subjects of some 
views I had taken, I paid the price. 

We sailed "Blue Galilee, where Jesus loved so 
much to be," but as usual the sanctity of the place 
was marred by some profane incident. Our sail 
boat was good and well manned until we neared 
Capernaum, when a squall struck us and the sail 
was lowered, but not quite soon enough to keep* 
us from being driven on to the rocks. We leaped 
off, then a sailor pulled off his pants, jumped 
into the water, leaned against the boat and 
pushed with his toes against the pier. After the 
boat had been made fast, I saw the captain take 
the poor fellow, who had been too slow with tha 
sail, beat him in the face with his fist until he 
spit blood, then push his head over the gun- 
wale, pound him, and nearly shake his head off 
his shoulders. 

"With charity for all and malice towards 
none," sounds well ; but it is hard to love these 
dirty Arabs and degraded Turks. Perhaps they 



GALILEE i2i 

are as good as can be expected. These poor peo- 
ple are taxed to death by the Sultan; extortion 
is his motto. They would like to have him provi- 
dentially deposed, and many of them would like 
to personally be the sharp instrument of his fate. 
Through an interperter one of my guides begged 
me to take him to America, promising to be 
"fera good." 

The Sea of Galilee ripples and roars in still 
summer night and stormy day the words and 
deeds of Him who sailed its waves and spoke on 
its shores. Nine cities once stood upon its banks ; 
fleets sailed its waves ; and now solitude and si- 
lence brood over all. Seven hundred feet below 
the Mediterranean level, the water is clear and 
good to drink, when drawn at sufficient distance 
from the filth of Tiberias. The green fringe in 
February gives place to bright oleanders later, 
and reflected in the limpid water are millions of 
little white shells. It was too cold to swim, and 
the fish did not bite. The lake is still subject to 
violent storms, but we risked a voyage. 

'Capernaum's brutality was on a par with the 
ruins of the cities and other villages near by on 
which the curse rested. We touched at Bethsai- 
da and Magdala, and then put back for Tiberias 
with the moon and stars mirrored in the blue 
water. We sang "Galilee," the waters joining 



122 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

in the chorus, then our sailors broke out in some- 
thing Hke "Ha-jah-manah-lyah-man," and pulled 
to the oars, for we promised tnem bucksheesh if 
they reached the convent first. They did, after 
landing us in such a way that it was necessary to 
be carried ten feet on the backs of swarthy 
thieves, who would have dropped us into the sea, 
between the boat and the shore, if we had not 
paid them. A big spread awaited us, and an 
hour later, after we were done. Rev. Mr. A., 
came in with his party, tired, hungry, and 
full of impetuous wrath. Their boat had 
been becalmed, and the sailors would not 
row, because bedeviled with the spirit of the Gad- 
arene swine, which nothing but money could exor- 
cise. This was denied them, and they struck. 
Of no avail were the yards of poetry reeled off 
on deck. The tourists' apparent indifference 
finally gave way when the clergyman threatened 
to hit the sailor with an oar, and exclaimed, with 
a voice which startled the sacred scene, "You are 
the worst set of sailors I ever saw, and I'll see 
you — dead — before I will give you a cent." 

The Mt. of Beatitudes, or Horns of Hattin, 
welcomed us with its curiously shaped hill. Near 
here Saladin defeated the crusaders in 1187, and 
placed the crescent above the cross. Scholars 
refer to it as the scene of the feeding of the five 



GALILEE 123 

thousand and mountain sermon. I opened my 
Bible and read the subhme discourse, with its 
illustration of flower, bird and rock all before 
me. What a prince of preachers Christ was. No 
wonder the multitudes followed him gladly. Near 
by were sheep folds of rock, shepherds leading 
their flocks, and all bearing mute testimony to 
the Good Shepherd who gave His life for His 
sheep. 

After I came down this historic mountain, I 
saw two Bedouins in the distance. At once I 
thought of their reputation for murder and rob- 
bery, and cried, "Allah, be with us." I was un- 
armed, and they possessed guns, sabres and pis- 
tols. Relief came to me in the form of a trav- 
eling Arab and wife, who diverted their atten- 
tion. The man preceded the woman, on foot, 
carrying a lance, she following on horseback. I 
immediately recalled Bayard Taylor's beautiful 
Arab song: 

"I love but thee, 

With a love that shall not die 

Till the sun grows cold, 

And the stars are old, 

And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold." 
But, pshaw ! I don't believe Bedouins are very 
brave. They look like cowards and would prob- 
ably "make a sneak" if attacked. I think they 
are in conspiracy with the government, and give 



124 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

half they make. That's a very nice arrangement ; 
you pay a big robber to keep the Httle robbers 
off. 

Caifa is yonder with our ship in the Mediter- 
ranean, and we are glad. We ate and drank at 
the brook Kishon. Our carriage was almost 
overturned in the valley, and to save myself I 
jumped into mud almost ankle deep and splashed 
my face and clothes till even the dogs looked 
doubtful. They reminded me of the story 
of a boy who went to see his girl. As he entered 
the yard, the bull dog leaped out with an ugly 
growl. "Come in, Sonny," called the fond father 
from the porch; "he won't hurt you. See, he is 
wagging his tail." "Yes, but he's showing his 
teeth, and I can't tell which end of him tells the 
truth." 

I climbed Mt. Carmel, viewed Lebanon, Her- 
mon, the city Caifa, German settlement and Med- 
iteranean; visited the Carmellite Monastery; 
played its Italian organ; chimed its bells; tasted 
its sacred liqueur; smelled its orange blossoms; 
and received a pilgrim's medal befitting a pil- 
grim through the Holy Land. 

Palestine is not large in size, but is great in 
significance. A diamond is small compared with 
a load of charcoal, but there is no proportion in 
value. In the scale of moral influence, the Holy 



GALILEE 125 

Land makes other lands lighter than the dust of 
the balance. 

I have gone from "Dan to Beersheba," and it 
is not all "barren." With firoper care and culti- 
vation Palestine could sustain myriads of people 
and make millions of money. I have a new Bible 
and a new geography. 

Travelers have been divided into three classes 
— those who are content to see natural localities 
connected with Christ's life, and who derive in- 
spiration' from its cherished memories ; those who 
swallow every fake and fable and mire themselves 
in the slough of superstition ; those who become 
thoroughly disgusted with all the sham and 
faults, and forget the value of the true, and ridi- 
cule it all as a joke. I belong to the first class. 
Blue sky and fleecy clouds, rushing river and 
rounded hill, peaked mountain and crystal lake, 
smiling plain and frowning valley, green grass 
and gray olives, red, white and blue lilies of the 
valley and flowers of the field are found here to- 
day, as when Christ loved and used them as illus- 
trations of His Father's providence. 

Much of rhapsodical and nonsensical prose and 
poetry have been written of the Holy Land. I 
revere it for what it was and not for what it is. 
Its past history is its halo. 



126 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 



CHAPTER XI. 
THREE CITIES OF THE ORIENT. 

Storms, like sorrow, may endure for a night, 
but joy comes in the morning. A wind that blew 
great guns and almost shot me through 
the guards at the bow, was followed by 
a bright, ccol morning. We had begun to sail 
west, and the ship's clock had been turned back 
one-half hour, so that I was too previous for 
breakfast. But a walk on an empty stom- 
ach is good, and when I did get at the 
table I remained until the provisions were 
out of sight and we sighted the beautiful 
islands of the Archipelago, the lands of story and 
song, and Taurus' blue mountain in the distance. . 

Two Asiatics rowed us over to Beirut in a rud- 
derless, lopsided boat, with a lack of skill that 
made us thankful we carried insurance enough 
to have a decent funeral, providing our bodies 
could be found. There is a fascination about an 
Oriental's manner and address that leads us to 
address him in a manner not altogether in har- 
mony with the dignity of an Episcopal prayer 
book. Once ashore, we drove to the German hos- 



THREE CITIES OF THE ORIENT. 127 

pital, with its beautiful garden of shrubs and 
flowers, its finely built and equipped buildings, 
and learned again that "twice-told tale," that the 
Germans are on earth for business in a business 
manner, and the stamp, "Made in Germany," is 
proof of stuff "all wool and a yard wide." 

The American Protestant college here is fa- 
mous for its missionary and philanthropic enter- 
prise. All creeds, colors, and classes of people 
are welcome, and on them not proselyting but 
quiet, Christian influences are brought to bear. 
Its assembly-room and fine organ would do credit 
to a state university — its museum is com- 
plete, and is under the direction of Professor 
Porter, who knew Dr. Guilian Lansing, and 
spoke highly of him for his Christian character 
and scholarly ability. 

Smyrna and sunrise were synonymous, and a 
tender towed us to shore. We were to "do" Eph- 
esus first, and so boarded a mule street car, which 
ran, or rather walked, to the station. The sea 
before, the snow-capped mountains behind, fer- 
tile valleys between, cultivated by gaudy farmers, 
were an intoxication, and we sang until natives 
"and nobles must have thought the expected earth- 
quake had come. 

Think of a locomoticve in this land of the 
Arabian Nights waking up the dreamy inhabi- 



128 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

tants. The roadbed was very rough. The super- 
intendent of the train had six coaches for us, but 
we were short of passengers, as only a few of us 
were rehgiously inchned enough to visit the sa- 
cred city. He was disappointed. We urged him 
to consider quahty and not quantity, and this 
only made matters worse. A wonderfully beau- 
tiful and picturesque ride brought us to old Ayas- 
salook. How do you like the looks of that word 
for a town? Well, its nam.e was appropriate to 
the nature of the inhabitants, and before we left 
them we applied the classic scripture, "If after 
the manner of men I have fought with beasts 
at Ephesus." 

Ephesus is about forty miles southeast of 
Smyrna. Its leading industry was the worship 
of Diana in a temple regarded as one of the seven 
wonders of the world, which became the eighth 
when Herostratus burned it down to immortalize 
his name. Diana illustrated the "Beauty and the 
Beast" in her magical mysteries and rotten rites. 
Even her image was "fallen" from Jupiter in 
heaven, — an image very old, much venerated and 
made of a black wood "tapering to the foot, with 
a female bust above covered with many breasts, 
the head crowned with turrets, and each hand 
resting on a staff." (So the Bible dictionary 
says, and it must be true.) Her meeting-house 



THREE CITIES OF THE ORIENT. 129 

was the glory and pride of the city. It was built 
of scores of white marble columns (see your 
guide book.) It contained immense treasures 
(see your encyclopaedia). 

Demetrius did a "16 to i" business here in 
making silver shrines for Diana (see Bryan), and 
I have an ancient Ephesian coin with a statue of 
Diana, for which I paid a silver dollar, and it is 
worth four copper cents to any fool who' doesn't 
care if he is faked. 

I bought a section of the marble temple ; sat in 
the solid rock seat of the theater where Paul 
read the riot act, a silent spectator — so far as the 
meanest and most murderous lot of looking na- 
tives I ever saw permitted. I looked at the ruins 
of aqueducts crowned with storks' nests, wan- 
dered through old mosques, reclined in the city 
gateway, had my picture taken 'mid the ruins of 
the Church of Ephesus, breathed foul air from 
the harbor, which is now a pestilential marsh ; 
gazed on heights ornamented with shapeless 
ruins — in fact, did the whole thing until I was 
about used up and glad to go to the hotel, where 
the entertaining Ephesian host, a twin brother of 
Jack Falstaff, fed us, saying, "Leef roome for 
more to eat," and then gave us a card with his 
photograph stuck on as a souvenir. 

Ephesus is a paradise for the Bible student, 



130 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

as well as the tourist and antiquarian. Paul 
often came here, founded a church, in which 
such v/orkers as Aquila and Timothy labored, 
and wrote one of his best epistles. Here John 
spent his declining years composing his gospel, 
and epistles, and returned from his banishment 
in Patmos to live and die among those he 
loved, while the Christ of the church compli- 
mented the Church of Ephesus in words which 
any church of today may well covet. 

Ephesus was the native heath of Apollo and 
Diana, of Pan who Piped, Amazons who at- 
tacked, Bacchus who boozed, Hercules who hit, 
Homer who hymned, and of Anthony the Amor- 
ous, who had such a bad case of heart disease 
with Cleopatra that one day when she happened 
to pass the open door of the court he left his seat 
and the advocates who were speaking, and rushed 
to her side, saying, "Fly with me and be my 
love, and we will have a boat ride with silvered 
oars, cologned sails, and entertaining actors, mu- 
sicians and servants to amuse us." 

Ephesus was the London and Paris of Asia. 
The boys here had an active time, and torpid 
livers. Artificial lakes, aqueducts, gymnasiums, 
odeons, hippodromes, forums, atheanseums, tow- 
ers and temples, from Apollo and Bacchus to the 
other end of the alphabet. For a joke it must 



THREE CITIES OF THE ORIENT. 131 

almost seem, they had a kind of faith cure, which 
agreed to put in a good eye and leg for a glass 
or wooden one if the invalid could pronounce 
these musical words, "Aski, Catski, Lix, Tetrax, 
Damnameneus Aision." Try it. Now let me 
see your tongue. How does it feel ? 

I think it was Professor Poofenheimer who 
discovered here the following inscription, since 
made familiar to many people : "This way to 
Foley's grave. Enjoy life while you live, for 
you will be a long time dead." 

"Great is Diana of the Ephesians." Alexan- 
der, Darius, Homer, Horace, and Virgil said so, 
and we add, yes, sir, and say, was but not is. Its 
vice and luxury burned out its life, and its mag- 
nificent marble architecture has melted like 
snow. Today its marshes are full of centipedes 
and scorpions. Among its ruins are hyenas and 
jackals, which prowl about, while its few native 
inhabitants are meaner still. Since leaving Amer- 
ica I have learned from the tombs of Memphis, 
from the hieroglyphics in Thebes and ruins here 
that the nations that forget God write their own 
epitaph. Ancient marbles, canvas, poetry and 
history are God's messengers to us, teaching us 
as a nation to put far from us the sins which are 
a "reproach to any people." 

We went back to see Smyrna. It is on record 



132 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

that Smyrna has been devastated by earthquakes, 
fires and cholera ; to this we must add the plague 
of the New England tourists ; were it not for the 
Protestant church and missionary zeal whicK this 
city now enjoys, the last affliction must have been 
the worst of all, and fatal. I liked Smyrna, figs, 
oranges, homes, hospitality and history. The 
story of its rich and powerful reign — its church 
referred to in Revelations — its, "Angel of the 
Church," Polycarp, John's pupil, who was mar- 
tyred and lies buried under a cypress, mid the old 
city ruins on the overhanging heights — its poly- 
glot peoples, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Franks, 
and the Turks who call it ''infidel Smyrna" be- 
cause all its inhabitants are not slaughtering Mo- 
hammedans. It presented a busy appearance 
with the foreign ships anchored in the big, deep 
harbor, and its caravan ships of the desert laden 
with precious jewels, spices, tapestries and most 
obnoxious odors. This card was put in my 
hand: 



JOHN BAGDADLI, 

MODERATE PRICES. 

THE DEAR STRANGERS ARE BEGGED TO 
VISIT OUR ORIENTAL BAZAAR. 



THREE CITIES OF THE ORIENT. 13^ 

The words ''moderate" and "dear" were some- 
what contradictory, but we had learned to offer 
half the price that was asked. I had read of the 
"Caliph of Bagdad" and had played the overture, 
but I wanted to see the real thing, so I visited the 
bazaar until I was crazy, the shopkeepers were 
crazy, and a crazy Nubian crawled under a big 
camel, took hold of my arm and yelled at me 
until I thought he would blow out a cylinder 
head. This confusion attracted the attention of 
an official, who eyed me and said, "Pickpockets." 
That was the "unkindest cut of all," and I 
can never see a Smyrna rug without thinking of 
the ragged experience I suffered. But there 
were some others, and misery had her company 

which she loves. My companion. Professor P , 

had long, black hair, which led a shrewd fellow 
to call him "Poet Lariat." My dragoman fell in 
love with one of our girls, and said as he sighed, 
"Oh, I cannot schleep tonight," while my guide 
looked at a folding umbrella, and put his hand 
to his head and said, "American big, big, big." 

I wanted something beside change of scen- 
ery and institutions, and so went to Cook's Tour- 
ist office. I got the change with a little discount, 
but there is no discounting the fact that when 
once you change your American Express order 
the money vanishes like melted ice. Bazaars of 



134 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

bric-a-brac, pastry shops, photo galleries and side 
shows are temptations on every side. 

I did buy a leather tobacco pouch, not because 
I smoked, but because it looked Oriental and 
would do to ornament my den at home. I 
thought I had the best of the bargain after an 
hour's higgling with the seller, but I learned 
differently. He had given me about thirty cents 
counterfeit money in change. 

An American flag attracted my attention. I 
made for it and found it led to a drug store, that 
old-time institution. The black-haired, eyed, 
skinned proprietor greeted me with : "Ameri- 
cano?" I said, "Yes, Kentucky." Thereup- 
on he jumped towards me, grasped my 
hand and said: "Whisky wtihout a head- 
ache!" Shades of prohibition martyrs! Could 
it be possible? But it was. My townsman 
distiller, Mr. McC, in Owensboro, whose book- 
keeper was a member of my congregation, had 
shipped him some barrels of firewater a few 
weeks before, so that when I told him where I 
hailed from he remembered the product and was 
"hail fellow, well met." He treated me as if I 
were a prince, showed me his store, emp- 
tied me with questions, filled me with com- 
pliments and promised me some Turk- 
ish delights. I didn't know just what he meant, 



THREE CITIES OF THE ORIENT. 135 

and said "no/' for I had seen some of them 
walking the streets and casting covered-eyed, 
bare-breasted, friendly glances at me from side 
doors and casement windows. But he said 
"sure," and thrust into my hand a box of candy, 
which was a cross between a marshmallow and 
an old-fashioned tooth-pulling gumdrop. Turk- 
ish delight, indeed. There were others, but this 
one wasn't bad. A drug store anywhere is a 
curious thing ; you can take anything in sight and 
get some things besides perfumery sub rosa. For 
instance, in America, whisky without a license, 
and in Syria without a headache. 

There were husky millers here years ago. It 
seems that there were some Millerites who 
thought that this world was a failure, and God's 
clock indicated the time when it would come to 
an end. In fact, they wanted it to end. This 
is the only thing which could make them 
or some of their modern followers happy. So 
they swarmed to Smyrna, robed themselves in 
white garments, climbed the mountain, and 
wanted to go up, but there was a hitch some- 
where ; they didn't rise ; they grew tired of wait- 
ing, and came down again to their homes, their 
aerial trip being no more of a success than Da- 
rius Green's flying machine. 

Some of us were tired and sleepy. The guide 



136 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

showed us the legendary cave of the Seven 
Sleepers; but we were afraid of "seven-come- 
eleven" — and remembering their sad Rip Van 
Winkle experience, repHed : "No Mount Pion 
for us." So far we have enjoyed health and hap- 
piness by sleeping in our own beds. 



CHAPTER XII. 
IN THE SULTAN'S CITY. 

On a golden sea beneath a sunlit sky, by is- 
lands and mountains glorious with classic and 
sacred memory, we sailed toward Constantino- 
ple. Our entrance to the Dardanelles was 
guarded by old forts on both banks and an an- 
chored fleet of three hundred old washtubs, 
which Admiral Dewey could knock into kind- 
ling wood before breakfast. Byron sings of this 
city and its surroundings, with its "cedar and 
vines, wings of zephyr and song of nightingale." 
Yet here, as everywhere, we are prepared to learn 
thafdistance lends enchantment to the view, "and 
when we land we may expect to be disillusion- 
ed. What's in a name? Much. Constantine 
came here in 300 A. D., bringing the seat of 



IN THE SULTAN'S CITY. 137 

government in his pants pocket from the Tiber 
to the Bosporus. The city grew and was new 
when old Rome was burned by the barbarians. 
CiviHzation, art and reHgion flourished under 
the first Christian emperor till a "nipping frost" 
fell in 1453, and the heathen entered into God's 
inheritance. To-day it is the monument of an 
ancient bulwark against barbaric invasion into 
Europe and a throne from which the scepter of 
great power has been wielded. 

Seraglio Point was the first place seen and 
visited; but it had ceased to be the sultan's court. 
That morning it was an Eveless Eden; but there 
were women elsewhere, and I learned that the 
law allowed a man four wives, but he usually 
found one sufficient. Yet Islam cares for the 
gentler sex, admits it has soul and is immortal if 
good, while the law allows her some privileges 
American women would be jealous of if they 
knew. I saw beautiful ladies in separate cars 
and carriages, walking in the streets or shopping 
in bazaars. This same secrecy is maintained in 
the home. The selamlik is a room for the men 
and the harem is for the women. There is a 
door between, beyond which not even the hus- 
band may go if the ladies visiting have left their 
shoes outside the door sill. Silly, isn't it? 

Stamboul, the moslem quarter, is near Ser- 



138 TRACKS OF' A TENDERFOOT. 

aglio Point. Galata, the business section, is 
along the shore, and Pera, the "infidel Europe- 
an" residence quarter, is on the hill. Before we 
crossed from Stamboul we visited the imperial 
treasury and found it full of souvenirs sultans 
had begged, borrowed or stolen. A bad fire had 
destroyed many things, they said, but I saw 
enough to stack a coal bin. Aladdin must 
have lived here and rubbed his lamp against 
"any old thing" until there were "quartz" 
of diamonds, gallons of pearls, bushels of emer- 
alds and rubies, soap boxes full of crowns and 
scepters, a room full of pearl-incrusted thrones 
and robes, tapestries, guns, shields and sabres 
sufficient to equip an army. The sultan isn't 
"broke" financially. It might break his heart to 
sell ofif some of his stuff to get money with which 
to pay his Armenian massacre indemnities; but 
I know he can do it, and I want to help make 
him dO' it on general principles, and especially 
because he made us wait two hours on his cere- 
mony in a damp, cold rain before he let us into 
his show place. Mad, did you say the tourists 
were? Just a little. There was a big tree near 
by on which his royal ancestors had hung some 
of the victims of his tyranny. We had been 
hung up for some time and I know of several 



IN THE SULTAN'S CITY. 139 

foreigners who would have returned the compli- 
ment with interest. 

The Golden Horn, so called from its similar- 
ity at sunrise to a Christmas cornucopia, or from 
the amount of wealth in its watery deep, is a 
sluggish arm of the sea filled with boats as thick 
as a Mississippi river log boom. 

There are thirty thousand of these caiques 
and they are to Constantinople what the gondo- 
las are to Venice. All I did was to get one out 
of the forest of the others and then sit flat down 
in the bottom as in a birch canoe, when I shot 
the rapids at the "Soo," and let the boatman do 
the rest. From the forest of craft we took a 
steamer and sailed for four miles past masts, 
floating bridges, banks, Cyprus groves, gaudy 
colored houses and minarets. Some of my friends 
saw all this "in a horn." They were cold and went 
down intoi the engine room to munch macaroni 
cakes, tell stories and keep warm, while my 
friend Millet was too cross for anything, having 
received just before he left the ship a bucket 
of slop over his new coat and pants. He was a 
comment on the couplet, "Every prospect 
pleases and only man is vile." 

Eyoub was at the end of the Horn, the burial 
place of the standard bearer of the Mohammed 
after whom the sacred suburb is named. Here 



140 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

the Sultan is inaugurated, wears the hero's 
sword and rides a white horse to his palace. We 
wanted to visit the shrine, but no Christian dog 
has ever been permitted to walk its sacred 
streets. If he tried it he would find a dog catch- 
er near by who would soon terminate his career. 

I saw the Horn and Sweet Waters of Europe, 
English and Jewish quarters of the city. Navy 
Yard, Sultan's summer palace, Constantine's pal- 
ace, Roman Acqueduct, Greek school and a sol- 
dier's burial. Believing the soul is in agony un- 
til the body is buried, they hasten interment if 
possible before night, carr3'ing the corpse in a 
box on their shoulders to t\ie grave, depositing 
the body and bringing back the box or cofSn as 
we do a hearse for the next funeral. Slow in 
life, the Turk is swift in death. 

Moslem cemeteries sigh with their cypress 
trees, planted at each grave, as we do a bush or 
flower; pelkovan birds called Lost Souls cry in 
distress. The guide said tC'mb stones were 
decorated with a marble fez for a man, or flower 
for a woman. Some of the itones stand up- 
right, others lean like drunken sTceletons. Shady 
places here and there are mucb frequented by 
picnic and promenading parties. The Moslem 
is a fatalist and does not allow such a necessary 



IN THE SULTAN'S CITY. . 141 

thing as death to throw gloom oi^er his pleas- 
ures. 

This Horn trip called us to dinner at the Peri 
palace hotel. From more and most everything 
in tapestries, tables and toddies that cold, starved 
souls needed, there was an abundance. We were 
to have a ball at night, the American flag was 
draped around in patriotic profusion, but death's 
"pale flag" had been advanced. Two of our num- 
ber lay dead. What 'sharp lightning' death 
makes when it strikes hard on life and in that 
flash we read our mortality. 

The Tower of Galata, diny white, circular, 
twelve feet thick and a mile high when you climb 
it in a crowd and hurry, was once a tower of de- 
fense, but is now used by the fire department 
which looks through field glasses to locate the 
fires which are frequent in the crowded parts of 
the city. It affords a fine view for miles around. 
The tower could tell many a story of conquest 
and carnage. I shall remember it more for the 
spiral climb, the pigeons darting over head and 
under foot, the rank greasy smell, and my de- 
sire to knock the heathen cone off the top and 
replace the cross which it had supplanted. 

Every day has its dogs in Constantinople. 
Dogs, big and little, brown and black, foxy and 
wolfish, and all the dogs have their day tO' sleep 



142 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

in and night to work in eating the refuse gar- 
bage thrown into the gutters. They are good- 
natured street-cleaners, Hve unmolested in select 
places, man and beast showing them a kind con- 
sideration unlike the dog-catching methods in 
the United States. I said "nice doggy" and one 
of them poked out his long nose and wagged 
his short tail and followed me until I was about 
to drive him home when a kind of sentinel police 
dog stationed on another beat made a jump for 
him and sent him howling back. A dog must 
"shinny on his own side" here or take the con- 
sequences. Hydrophobia is said to be unknown 
here but I found flees in evidence. 

The Turk builds fountains instead of statues 
and crosses. His religious motto is, "Dirt 
is Depravity," but he wastes no water in 
scrubbing his streets and that is why he gets s'o 
dirty and must wash sO' often. The broom bri- 
gade on the roads is not seen. "Throw physic 
to the dogs" and they will do the rest. 

One sees water everywhere in the ruins of 
gigantic aqueducts and under ground cisterns 
six hundred feet long. The "Thousand and One 
Pillars" looks like the colonnade of an Oriental 
temple. There is no water in it now but it is 
filled with flying bats and bad bogey-man leg- 
ends and inhabited by silk spinners who are 



IN THE SULTAN'S CITY. 143 

weaving their own shrouds. I found the city a 
paradise for' the Temperance Advocate. The 
Koran prohibits intoxicating drink and the 
Turks obey and could elect a prohibition presi- 
dent if they wanted to. When you want a drink 
a fantastically dressed fellow rushes to you with 
bells in his hands and a barrel on his back, turns 
the faucet and puts out your fiery thirst with wa- 
ter or lemonade. 

The Whirling Dervishes whirled and der- 
vished for us to our heart's content with a po- 
etry of motion a Sitka Indian could nev- 
er attain. My head grows dizzy and my 
stomach faint when I think of them and 
their musical accompaniment of tambourines 
and flutes which were a cross between an 
ungreased saw and the breathing of an over- 
driven horse. I left before these human tops 
stopped spinning and I carried away the memory 
of their tomato can hats, bell shaped robes, half- 
closed eyes, drooping heads and extended arms. 
I still see the uplifted right palm catching a 
blessing from Allah, the left hand turned down 
to> bestow it. 

There is a proverb, "The uest thing to be in 
the world is a Christian, the next best thing is to 
be a Mohammedan." Mohammedanism seems 
to be a kind of rationalistic Christianity. The 



144 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

doctrine of the Atonement is excluded but it 
has some points more closely resembling Chris- 
tianity than Judaism or Buddhism. 

Galata bridge across the Horn is the world 
in embryo. A polyglot people of all the classes, 
collections, and casts and costumes you can 
imagine. Here comes an official in a hack fol- 
lowed by an armed guard. Fezzes like a wave 
of blood roll by suggesting the brutal murder of 
the Armenian , Christians on this thoroughfare; 
gaudily dressed officers and raggedly-clad vend- 
ers of fruit and beggars hideous in deformity 
beyond anything we have seen in Egypt or the 
Holy Land. The bazaars caught the eye of my 
friend who had said, "If there are no bazaars in 
Constantinople I want to go to Athens." There 
were acres of them filled with gold and silver or- 
naments, rugs, tapestries, silks, fez hats, guns 
and knives. They were located on narrow, 
staggering streets filled with crowds of mer- 
chants and sight-seers who had delirium tremens 
of activity. 

The mosque of Santa Sophia is to Constanti- 
nople what Hamlet is to the play. Justinian 
built it to outrival Solomon's temple, but the 
Turk piled big buttresses against the dome and 
planted minarets around it until the original 
architect would scarcely recognize it. Sophia 




TowKR OF constantine; 



IN THE SULTAN'S CITY. 14S 

is the finest mosque of five hundred in 
the city. Golden sun and silver moon 
make a dreamy scene of marble and min- 
arets till you are waked by the muezzin 
who five times a day calls to prayers, 
saying: "God is great, there is but one God, Mo- 
hammed is the prophet of God, prayer is better 
than sleep, come to prayer." Of more interest 
to me than this airy dome and massive masonry, 
or prayer rug floor, or blood fingered wall, or 
sword scarred sweating column, was the mosaic 
picture of Christ, long ago covered over with 
Turkish paint, which is now peeling of¥ and 
showing the form and face of Him who is the 
"Light of Asia" and of the whole world. 

Looking up two hundred feet to the dome 
of St. Sophia, I stumbled over two devout Mos- 
lems who were kneeling towards Mecca. They 
said "Allah, something," and I said, "Allons," 
and "ah there." If it had been Friday and the 
priest had been in his pulpit with Koran in one 
hand and drawn sword in the other, I might have 
felt the force of his remarks. I thought of the 
Scripture quotation, "My house shall be called a 
house of prayer but ye have made it a den of 
thieves," as I looked upon its gold mosaics, 
ornaments of beauty, swinging lamps, and col- 



140 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

umns of jasper and alabaster which had been 
stolen from the four quarters of the world. 

I like a Hippodrome now, because the circus 
was a forbidden thing when I was a boy. The 
tents were like the New Jerusalem to my young 
eye, but the animals were a guarded Eden which 
1 might not enter. In this quaint town I saw 
the remains of a show that beat Barnum's. 
The horses of St. Mark's had gone back to Ven- 
ice, battered statues and buildings were crum- 
bled, but the Egyptian Obelisk looked silently 
down as it had on Moses, Plato and Cleopatra. 
The little bronze column which had held the 
golden tripod of Apollo's priestess at Delphi 
shamed our youth into reverent silence, while 
the big blackened Constantine column held to- 
gether by iron rings excited our veneration. Phi- 
dias' statue of Apollo had crowned its summit 
and Constantine had carved on its pedestal these 
famous words, "O, Christ, Ruler and Master of 
the World, to Thee have I consecrated this city 
and the power of Rome. Guard it and deliver it 
from harm," 

The Maiden's Tower made me sigh as I re- 
called the legend of the lover whose flower gift 
concealed the serpent which sent her to Cleo- 
patra's death. Then there was the museum with 
its splendid collection of statues, antiques, and 



IN THE SULTAN'S CITY. 147 

Alexander Sarcoliagtis, whose marble beauty al- 
most robbed death of its terrors. 

The best things I noted in Constantinople was 
its educational advantages. Robert college, 
with its American teachers and missionaries, di- 
recting the mind and heart of young men from 
all parts of the Orient and sending them back 
evangels of material, mental and moral liberties. 
The American college for girls is on the Asiatic 
side near Scutari doing the same tor the women 
and a Bible house, in spite of local prejudice and 
opposition, is growing a tree of life whose leaves 
are for the healing of the nations. 

From the Golden Horn to the Black Sea was 
only sixteen miles, but a picture of white clouds, 
blue water, warship and tugs ; banks on the Asia 
bowing to bays on the European side; colored 
houses peering through cypress trees; the pic- 
turesque castle of Europe, once monumental, 
now a mass of ruins; the place where Asia and, 
Europe clasp hands within one thousand six 
hundred feet, where I read the story of Jason 
and his Argonauts and Golden Fleece; Darius 
with a bridge of boats and host of seven hundred 
thousand men; Xenophon and his retreat of the 
ten thousand Greeks; the sailing of the ban- 
ished poet Ovid ; the crossing of the Cru- 
saders en route to the Holy Sepulchre ; 



148 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

the sailing of the French and Enghsh fleets at 
the time of the Crimean war ; while above stands 
Marochetti's monument to the eight thousand 
British soldiers who lie buried along the blue 
Bosporus, surrounded by sculptured angels who 
recall their bravery and record the ministry of 
the tender, loving Florence Nightingale. 

With a sunlit sail by and beyond the city, 
past crumbling walls, scowling forts and Rob- 
ert College with its American flag flying and 
students waving their hands and shouting, we 
sped on into the Black Sea. Returning to Con- 
stantinople, some of the city passengers who had 
come along for a little ride expected the big 
steamer would stop on the way back, but we 
were headed for Greece and so the big whistle 
sounded for a tender with hard hearted tone. At 
last it came and then came the tug of war in a 
high sea and a stiff breeze, to make fast to our 
boat for the transfer of the passengers. One 
man lost his hat, another jumped into a row boat 
and lashed himself with rudder rope, a lady slid 
down the gangway almost into the sea, and 
my kodak records some other exposures which 
would not look well in print. 

During our stay we had anchored opposite 
Dolma Baghtcheh, the sultan's most splendid 
palace. Sun and moon burnished its marble 



IN THE SULTAN'S CITY. 149 

walls and tracery into an outer glory which was 
only the reflection of an inward splendor. Mar- 
bles, stairway, mosaics, frescoes, bronzes, 
rugs, tapestries, cut glass, columns, urns of 
malachite and porphyry lead to a resplendent 
throne room, one of the finest in the world. At 
one time this palace held seven hundred people, 
now not one except the guards for the house is 
haunted with the memory of his murdered uncle, 
Abd-ul-Aziz as isn't and his insane elder brother. 
Uneasy lies the head, that wears the crescent. 

The present government is called the 
sublime porte, which means the Lofty Gate, but 
its elevation is only in name. Time was 
when Othman and Suleyman were names to 
conjure with, men cruel but kingly. The present 
ruler has a low forehead, a hooked nose, red 
beard, crafty looking face and is a lazy, cowardly, 
murderous despot who can't even visit his 
mosque on Friday to serve his God without the 
pomp and protection of ten thousand men 
to guard his sacred person. He calls him- 
self a "Shadow of God.*' Alas, poor ghost ! 
God is 'truth, Mahammed is falsehood and 
Islam's three great forces were and are 
the sword, slavery and sensuality. How 
long before the "balance of powers" will 
upset his throne? If there is no political solu- 



ISO TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

tion then we must look for a religious one. The 
"Sick man of Europe" is Asiatic in his 
religion and nature. Some writers are hope- 
ful of Constantinople's future, but I am 
not, though I do not forget her situation 
and past history. So long as the crescent 
shines where the cross stood I shall believe that 
the swift current known as the Devil's Stream, 
which flows between the Black Sea and Mar- 
mora, is symbolic of a satanic force' which rules 
and ruins. It has been well said the "United 
States has citizens, England has subjects and 
Turkey has abjects" — yes — "abjects" which 
have hounded me by day and haunted me in 
dreams by night all through Egypt, Palestine 
and Syria. 

Richard Cobden believed that America's oc- 
cupation of Turkey would solve the "Eastern 
Question." After what we did at Manila and 
Cuba, it is possible we may hear the war cry, 
"On to the Dardanelles," for the satisfaction of 
Miss Stone. Mr. W. T. Stead suggests that the 
Stars and Stripes float over the waters of Mar- 
mora, and when the Sultan flees from Stamboul, 
leaving his capitol to the mob, Americans may 
step in and save Constantinople from the fate of 
Alexandria. Indefinite occupation would do 
what Europe could not, nor would Europe ob- 



IN THE SULTAN'S CITY. 151 

ject, and so Gobden's dream would come true of 
the great republic of the West becoming an 
agent for restoring the prosperity and peace of 
the desolated East. 

I had seen Constantinople by sun, moon, lamp 
and candle light, heard its noises, smelled its 
smells and been dusted by its dirt. I wanted a 
bath. As last I got the Simon pure article. I 
took it Hke my coffee, a la Turk. I was roasted, 
pounded, boiled, peeled and had my weight re- 
duced fifteen pounds. I did not speak to the 
proprietor the next morning. To me he was an 
"unspeakable Turk," and I cut him on the street. 
If I ever catch that fiend on American soil, who 
tortured me in that Turkish Tartarus, I'll "feed 
fat the ancient grudge I bear him," and intro- 
duce him to the proverbial good Indian, who is 
always dead. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
GrREECE AND MARS HILL. 



I sat with a book on my lap, a white-capped 

\cheek and gave me an eighth birthday kiss. I 

sea before me and little Courtland Meyers by my 

^ \ side, who softly put up his sweet mouth to my 



iSi2 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

thought it very nice, for my little flaxen-curled, 
blue-eyed boy Lowell was many miles from his 
papa. "Pluck ye roses while ye may," and kiss 
when you can, for while we sailed in the white 
course of the big moon before us, a storm was 
gathering in the back, black distance which 
threatened a number of experiences. 

The storm struck us in the night and, with 
form stretched out like a pantograph to 
keep from tumbling out of my berth, I existed 
until morning. After several desperate attempts 
to get dressed and not caring whether I shaved 
or wore a tie, I reached the upper deck. The 
bugle blew for breakfast; no, I thank you, the 
fish are well fed from the kitchen. Later I ven- 
tured into the smoking room, where I met a man 
who divided his time between cards and claret, 
proposing a toast to "the best woman God ever 
made." Strange, it was his wife, I think, and 
the anniversary of their marriage. Then fol- 
lowed a heated debate about the holy Greek fire 
at Jerusalem by some red-faced brethren who 
frequently tanked up on large amounts of un- 
holy American fire-water. That night a benefit 
was given by the ship's victualling department 
for African widows and orphans. It met my ap- 
proval, for if England had decided to make them 
she was under obligation to take care of them. 



GREECE AND MARS HILL. I53 

How ancient and atrocious war is! As old as 
Satan; and will continue to write its history in 
blood as long as the devil of avarice, ambition 
and revenge rules human hearts. At last, steady 
and hungry enough to break my fast, I wel- 
comed the call, "Roast beef and dinner." 

What a menu ! How I obeyed the Bible com- 
mand to eat what was set before me, "asking 
no questions'' — except for more — till the band 
played "America" and we sang at the table like 
naughty little boys. When it struck up the "An- 
vil Chorus," I improvised a whole blacksmith 
shop with my cut glass tumblers and accidentally 
shivered them into a hundred pieces. Strange 
conduct — but circumstances ol salt air, the 
poetry of motion and musical commotion alter 
cases. 

Tomorrow Greece, where song and statuary lit 
their torch! Was nature a little jealous and 
came in the night before with a strangely beau- 
tiful picture? Oh, for a Beethoven to compose 
another "Moonlight Sonata," "as, standing in the 
bow, we sped towards a cloud bank with a big 
moon behind it silvering its edges; slowly the 
cloud grew light, assumed the form of Angelo's 
"David," and held up the silver globe as an of- 
fering from the sea to the sky. 

How much more of painting and statuary 



154 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

there is in heaven, earth and sea than is dreamed 
of in our artist philosophy. 

"The Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho 
loved and sung," are brown, with rugged out- 
line, green with figures of trees, gray with vil- 
lages, or white with, temple-crowned crests. J. 
L. Stoddard has said, "To sail on Grecian waters 
is to float through history; the very islands they 
caress have been cradles of fables, poesy and 
history. From each has sprung a temple, statue, 
poem, or, at least, a myth, which still exists to 
furnish joy and inspiration to the world." 

We dropped anchor in the old harbor, 
within a short distance of the town Pi- 
raeus, which is the port of Athens. It was 
busy with traffic of the day, but above it rose 
the murmur of the blue water which in Greek 
history and poetry told of the ships which swept 
on to Salamis to destroy Xerxes' fleet. 

We landed in a tender and were as- 
saulted with tenderloin sights before we reached 
the main street, with its big monument, 
where fighting, smoking, shopping and drinking 
seemed to be the chief pastimes. But what else 
can you expect men to do who are the house- 
keepers? Mr. Hubby goes out early in the 
morning, orders the day's bill of fare and tells 
the delivery boy how he wants it served. The 



GREECE AND MARS HILL. 155 

head of the house could cook it himself, if he 
pleased, as well as his wife or daughter, but pre- 
fers to just boss the job. The Greeks take a 
little fruit and cofTee for breakfast; at noon they 
regale themselves more substantially. Like 
some other people, they enjoy a nap after din- 
ner, only they generally prolong it until four 
o'clock. It would have been as impolite for me 
to call upon a Greek at this time as for him to 
wake me up at a corresponding hour in the 
morning. After this long siesta, the native eats 
and drinks a little more and manages to exist 
until nine or ten o'clock, when he has the meal 
of the day. 

Prince George's boat, manned by handsome- 
faced, well-dressed sailors, rowed by us. They 
sang something in an unknown tongue. We 
replied by floating Old Glory, and they recog- 
nized it by raising their oars in a kind of salute. 

Five miles beyond the Piraeus stands a small, 
square-topped hill, which we scanned through 
the bottom of our glass and discovered to be 
the immortal Acropolis. Was that the citadel 
Coxey Xerxes and his five million followers 
took five himdred years ago, in spite of the 
officials' "Keep off the Grass?" 

Let us leave by train this city of commerce 
for the classic shrine of Athens and walk about 



156 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

with the shades of Plato and recall the days 
when the scepter of power had not depart- 
ed. I had read and dreamed of Greek beauty 
all my life ; there was none in the Piraeus ; there 
may have been some in Athens, but not for us, 
and I know some lovers of beauty who spent 
time and money by day and night to discover 
them, but in vain. The only woman we saw 
who could realize our ideal of Grecian beauty 
was in our car from Piraeus to Athens. She 
sat opposite us, and seemed to possess what By- 
ron sang of to his landlady's daughter in his 
"Maid of Athens" — "Fringed lids and blooming 
tinge, and roe-like eyes, tasteful lip, and zone- 
encircled waist." 

"Ring out the old, ring in the new," and we 
found modern Athens full of interest. About 
one hundred years ago the Turks painted the 
marble white town red and wrought ruin. Today 
there are several hundred thousand inhabitants. 
One finds a city with clean streets, attractive 
squares, fine residences, beautiful public build- 
ings of which any mayor might be proud. There 
are many good hotels ; Alexandria, Palace, Splen- 
did or Angleterre. Wherever you go to dine 
things are well cooked in Greece. 

The Greek is a study. There is a mystery 
about him which eludes you like Banquo's 



GREECE AND MARS HILL. 157 

ghost or Don Quixote's Dulciana. When Greek 
meets tourist he tries to cheat him. One morning 
I started out for some kodak films. For an hour 
I made and read Greek signs, talked with my 
fingers and lips and at last found them for $1.50 
a dozen. Athens is a bootblack's paradise. You 
may have your shoes shined on a fancy-shaped 
brass-headed tacked box by a classic faced na- 
tive. Without your guide you may get a cab 
and drive from the Acropolis to Plato's school 
and spend most of the time in trying to pay 
your driver, a mJserable, mendacious fellow, who 
mocks the greatness of his former countrymen. 
He, "no understand English." I tried to talk 
to mine, for I had studied Greek under Dr. J. R. 
Boise and had read the Classics and the New 
Testament. No progress. At last I tried a para- 
graph from an old sermon on the state of the 
impenitent dead, and that fixed him. He took 
the fare that I ofifered him and left me to think 
of Kai Gar hackmen as neither generous nor 
gentlemanly. 

The king has a beautiful palace and garden. 
So I heard and saw from the outside. I tried 
the ''Come into the garden, Maude," act, but a 
policeman, dressed like a ballet girl with much 
larger means of support, said, "Lego," and stood 
as the guard at Eden. I told him with an "alia" 



158 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

to give my regards to the royal couple who 
seemed to have overslept, and tell them I would 
call again later or be pleased to meet them in 
the West. 

I was more fortunate at Dr. Schliemann's resi- 
dence; a dream of pure Pentelic marble adorned 
with beautiful groups of statues; a monument 
to the great scholar and explorer of Troy. I 
have a photograph of it with two companions 
near the front sfeps. The contrast between them 
and the classic statues on the roof would make 
you smile and them cry. 

"The little church around the corner," of Al- 
pha or Omega street, was a good specimen of 
Byzantine architecture with its round arch, dome 
pillar, circle and cross. We entered rever- 
ently, for a funeral service was "being held. We 
did not understand the sermon or ritual, but we 
could read the dark grief lines in the mourners' 
faces, which required more than earthly candles 
to illuminate. 

The Greek parliament was in session one 
night. We occupied the visitors' section and 
found the speeches quite as intelligible as some 
we had heard in Washington. 

I met the Greeks at home and found them 
Greeks in spite of invasions and influx of Slavs, 
Wallachains and Albanians. They speak a Ian- 



GREECE AND MARS HILL., 159 

guage which is less unlike the speech of Homer 
than the English of today is different from the 
talk of Chaucer. 

They have been independent less than seventy 
years, after centuries of Turkish misrule, yet 
have achieved wonderful things. They do not 
equal the art and philosophy of the past, but the 
same may be said of Italy, which had but one 
Raphael and Angelp; Germany but one Schiller 
and Goethe, and England but one Shakespeare. 

They were not building a new Parthenon, but 
seemed to appreciate the old one and were re- 
pairing it, and erecting splendid museums free 
for all. I looked for another Aristotle and found 
his academy closed, but saw public schools and 
buildings for higher education in law, medicine, 
art, pharmacy and theology. 

Every Grecian is a politician and knows what 
is best for his country. Editors write it in the 
papers, men talk it on the street corners and 
waiters in the cafes. They have a king, a right 
royal fellow, but a democratic spirit prevails. I 
believe the constitution has abolished titles of 
nobility. Among the Greeks a man is "every 
inch a king." 

The country is weighed down with debt, like 
old Sinbad, yet Greece is hopeful and the na- 
tions who became her creditors, and took Shy- 



i6o TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

lock for a patron saint, deserve to wait until the 
middle of an indefinite month for their pay. 

I heard and saw that honesty was not an over- 
worked virtue among the inhabitants, but it is 
universally admitted the Greeks have a morality 
above their European neighbors, and tneir wo- 
men can teach modesty and purity to many con- 
tinental and American cities. The Greek is a 
volatile, excitable compound, and gets angry eas- 
ily. Statistics prove that most of the crime re- 
sults from violence. 

The people are as religious today as in Paul's 
time and have countless known and "unknown" 
altars and sacred places where they worship, to 
drive a plow through which would be infamy. 
But their religion seems to be a kind of national 
affair, something to be fought for if necessary, 
but not intellectually or spiritually apprehended 
personally. A good authority declares: "The 
Greek priests are not as well educated as those 
■of the Roman Catholic church, but their morals 
are incalculably higher." They generally receive 
no pay for public services and, like Paul, must 
"work" for themselves. They may marry once, 
but when they are made bishops must renounce 
their wife and children. Who supports the fam- 
ily then? I don't know. 

Evangelical and colporteur efforts have been 




READING PAUL'S SERMON ON MARS HILL 



GREECE AND MARS HILL. i6i 

attended with some success, though proselyting 
is not popular. "Protestants may convert Mos- 
lems, and Moslems Protestants, but neither must 
try to convert an orthodox Greek." 

The Greeks are very proud of their Academy 
of Science. Who wouldn't be? Of marble, rows 
of Ionic columns, and sculptures in the pediment 
modeled after those which adorned the shrines 
of the Acropolis two thousand years ago. Two 
lofty columns on each side in the foreground are 
crowned with the religious figures of Apollo and 
Minerva, while below them at the steps are 
statues of their philosophical Socrates and Plato. 
America must have a worthy temple of fame for 
some of her famous children, but let it be mod- 
eled after this one as soon as we graduate our 
embodiment of beauty in Grover Cleveland, wis- 
dom in Bryan, philosophy in Bill Nye and re- 
ligion in Ingersoll. 

I raced to the Stadium. It has been excavated 
and refurnished with marble seats enough to ac- 
commodate sixty thousand people. The 
Olympian games were the old sports' head- 
quarters, and even now make interesting 
reading, as much as golf or football. In 
1896 there was an international contest 
here of long jumps and throwing of the dis- 
cus, and I recall with pleasure how some Ameri- 



l62 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

cans took the prizes, and Old Glory and the 
eagle flew high. Paul must have attended the 
races here, for he repeatedly uses figures of 
speech, such as "Running a race," "Corruptible 
garland." Why shouldn't he have been a "good 
mixer" if he hoped to do the people good? 

A place of great interest is Hadrian's Arch, 
of the second century A. D., bearing the inscrip- 
tion on one portal, "This is Athens, the old city 
of Theseus," and on the other side, "This is the 
new city of Hadrian, not that of Theseus." It 
was the doorway between the conquered Gre- 
cians and the victorious Romans. 

Athens is called the most famous city in the 
world. You would not think so from what I 
have told you thus far. Why then? Not because 
of its size, or wealth, or situation, or climate, or 
surroundings, but because she was the mother of 
heroes and historians, sculptors and statesmen, 
poets and patriots. Byron sings, "Where e'er 
we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground." Poor By- 
ron ! The Greeks wanted him buried here be- 
cause of his sympathy, friendly and financial help 
against their Turkish enemies. Dying, he said: 
"Now I shall go to sleep." Did he? They have 
built a beautiful monument to his memory. 

I spoke on the platform of Demosthenes, that 
rough, rock place where the great orator ad- 



GREECE AND MARS HILL. 163 

dressed the Athenians gathered in the market 
place which stood opposite. 

I visited the prison of Socrates, that dark hole 
cut in the rock, where the foremost Greek of all 
the world dwelt and discussed and dauntlessly 
took the death potion which crowned him with 
immortality. 

On the principle of taking- everything not 
nailed down, Athens has been robbed from the 
time of Nero to Lord Elgin, until she has only 
models and casts of some of her most noted 
works in stone, bronze, gold, marble and ivory. 
But some things remain unmoved from the "tooth 
of time and razure of oblivion." I worshipped at 
, the Temple of Theseus, dedicated to the demi- 
god and the god hero who appeared at the nick 
of time at Marathon to help the Greeks drive 
out the invading Persians. I visited the Odeon, 
with the climbing arches of the CoHseum, in 
which a full orchestra meant eight thousand 
people, but its voice of singer and applause of 
listener had died away on the passing breeze. 
Next to it stands the ruins of the Theater of 
Bacchus, two thousand four hundred years old, 
with amphitheater room for thirty thousand 
people, seats of marble, sky for a roof, 
where the plays of Sophocles were acted 
and are now studies for models, unsurpased by 



i64 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Shakespeare. I sat in the ancient chair of an 
Athenian magistrate whose name was carved 
upon it, and looked at the grotesque statues sup- 
porting the stage of the theater and wished they 
could tell me what things they had heard and 
seen. 

I entered the portico of the Temple of Hercu- 
les, supported by caryatides which are as Pentelic 
pink and loaf sugar sweet as their real sisters 
were thousands of years ago. I stood in the 
Temple of "Wingless Victory." It contained at 
one time the statue of a goddess — without wings, 
that she might never leave Athens. Like Noah's 
dove, she has found rest for her feet. 

Greece was called the center of the world. At- 
tica of Greece, Athens of Attica, the Acropolis 
of Athens, and the Parthenon the center of the 
Acropolis. It is the monarch of all the beautiful 
ruins of the world. History accords it the finest 
gallery of art and statues ever seen. Judged 
merely by the chips and specimens you stumble 
over, Phidias and Praxiteles were masters, Col- 
umns, bas-reliefs, fringes, busts, figures and 
statues lead one to wonder whether he is in fairy 
land or in a cemetery with its resurrected in- 
mates. 

The Parthenon was to Athens what Solomon's 
Temple was to Jerusalem, and was the perfec- 



GREECE AND MARS HILL. 165 

tion of architecture. Though its roof was blown 
off, statues deni'olished and columns laid low, its 
glory lost in a "shell game" which the Venetians 
played by dropping a ball into a powder maga- 
zine the Turks had there, much was left, and the 
Improvement Society is restoring some of the 
former glory. With its statue of Minerva in 
gold and ivory, forty feet high, the Acropolis and 
the Parthenon must have appeared to the sailors 
and citizens and soldiers like an "aerolite cast 
from the noonday sun, its temples petrified 
foam; its ruins white breakers on the great ocean 
of time." 

Art is not a mere fad or fanaticism. The All 
Beautiful inspires man with ideas which he em- 
bodies in palace, temples, sculpture and paint- 
ing. Perhaps the Greeks borrowed from the 
Egyptian, Phoenecian and Assyrian, but his 
architecture and statuary show vastly increased 
executive skill. It may be too strong to say, 
"No Athens, no Florence, no Phidias' Jupiter, 
no Angelo's Moses," but we must admit the 
Greeks were framers of the modern art world, 
in the principles which we have not much im- 
proved on. Later the ideas of manly strength 
and womanly beauty expressed in marble de- 
generated until the time of Zeuxis and Apelles. 
That matter was not overcome by spirit, was 



i66 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

often plain to our startled, blushing tourists as 
they entered cemeteries and galleries of >ld art. 
The moral efifect of marble is well maintained 
to depend more on the within than the without, 
on what is done rather than desired, on the char- 
acter of the men whose forms are carved. 

I climbed up sixteen rocky steps and stood 
upon Mars Hill, looked at the regality of the new 
city and the ruins of the old, and tried to imagine 
the scene as Paul witnessed it with its altars, 
temples and philosophical people. By request of 
Dr. Pentalagon, I took out my Bible, turned to 
Acts 17:16, 34, and read Paul's speech to the 
Grecians on Mars Hill. What a pulpit! Per- 
haps Paul came up Minerva street, across Tri- 
pod avenue, and saw more gods than men or 
women, and became indignant at the idolatry. 
When some of the gossiping Greeks asked him: 
"What is the news?" he told them: "Jesus and 
the resurrection, two deities you know nothing 
about." They invited him to come up to the 
Aeropagus, the place where the supreme court 
held its nightly open-air sessions, and where 
Socrates and Demosthenes had often stood. 

What a preacher ! Renan called him "The 
little ugly Jew," but with the fire of love's logic, 
his stature was forgotten, and he stood a relig- 
ious iconoclast, with a courage commended to 



GREECE AND MARS HILL. 167 

cotton-stringed preachers of today, who cater to 
pubHc taste and influential pew-holders. 

What a sermon! Believing their restless, 
worldly condition was because their art had be- 
come religion and religion their _ art, in their 
worship of the beautiful and the human, he rea- 
s'oned to them of creation, providence, grace, the 
divine fatherhood of God and brotherhood of 
man, in a polite, practical and poetical manner. 

What an audience of people ! Stoics, Epicu- 
reans and Academicians, together with hangers 
on, all of whom represented classes which had 
not been made perfect by the beauty of their art. 

What a result! Some mocked, others pro- 
crastinated, a few believed, just as people do 
now. All the minister can do is to be faithful — ■ 
results are God's. 

I found no statue erected to commemorate 
Paul's greatness, but I believe he did more to 
immortalize Athens than Phidias with his stat- 
ues, Demosthenes with his orations, and Hadrian 
with his conquests. His church at Corinth, epis- 
tles of the New Testament, churches and cathed- 
rals bearing his name, and his influence in the 
Christian thought of today are eternal monu- 
ments. 

Paul admitted "he was debtor to the Greek," 
so do we in the language of Homer, the archi- 



i68 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

tecture of the Parthenon, the sculpture of Phidi- 
as, the philosophy of Plato, the tragedy of So- 
phocles, the morals of Socrates, and the patriot- 
ism of Marathon and Thermopylae. 

We leave Greece, feeling "Fair Greece! Sad 
relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no 
more; though fallen, great!" 



CHAPTER XIV. 
NAPLES AND VESUVIUS. 

"See Naples and Die," but I nearly died with 
sea-sickness the day before I saw it. Half 
dressed, I crawled on deck, threw myself in a 
steamer chair and lay there from lo a. m. till 6 
p. m. It was Sunday and there was service in 
the cabin, but my thoughts were on my stomach 
and not on my soul. Mr. Cargill passed 
by me like the ancient priest and Levite, 
leaving me to think of the story of the 
sea captain who said, "There's no hope, the ship 
is doomed. In an hour we'll all be dead," to 
which the sick passenger replied "thank heav- 
en." 

Leaving Greece, we steamed through the nar- 
row straits of Messina, passed Scylla and Cha- 



NAPLES AND VESUVIUS. 169 

rybclis, looked at Aetna and StromboH, those 
giants ready to illumine at sjiort notice, and at 
last dropped anchor in the Bay of Naples, where 
the winds whisper and the waves murmur and 
Vesuvius flames the history of Homer, Horace 
and Humbert. Yonder was Posolippo, the place 
of Virgil's tomb; Pozzuoli, Paul's landing place; 
Nisidia, the resort of Brutus and Cicero; Baiae, 
the Newport and Saratoga of the Roman world ; 
Sorrento, famous for its wood workers and its 
ruined temple of Neptune; Amalfi, once com- 
mercially and politically powerful, now pictur- 
esque with its macaroni and soap manufactories; 
Ischia, a siren to lure with her beauty and de- 
stroy with earthquake embrace; Capri, with her 
cave of nymphs, dark blue roof and bright blue 
water, the old home of Tiberius, that villainous 
compound, "half mud, half blood," who was 
hated as much as he hated. 

Naples is a beautiful picture with its gray 
buildings, castled St. Elmo and two headed Ve- 
suvius set in a frame of blue bay, green fields and 
trees. Minstrel players and singers rowed out to 
our vessel and serenaded us with, "Faniculi, 
Fanicula," "Trovatore," and "Santa Lucia." We 
drove through the new and old part of the city, 
visited its wonderful aquarium, new domed gal- 
lery and astonishing museum, and threaded the 



170 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

old road tunnels. As usual, we were disillu- 
sioned. The houses were high, the streets nar- 
row, the animals were numerous, dirty linen was 
washed in public and ornamented the clothes 
lines which zigzagged like telegraph wires 
across the street, while from balconies overhead 
gaily dressed and undressed women nodded their 
heads to the passers below like birds in a cage. 

The quay of Santa Lucia is like a sewer into 
which all the live refuse of the narrow streets 
flows. The native milkman drives his cows and 
goats in the front of a house and fills the bottles 
lowered by a string from the upper window; no 
pump in theirs. On all sides the hungry find 
portable restaurants with fish, fruit, soup, cake 
and macaroni. Like the Arabs, one meets story 
tellers, who read and recite with voice and ges- 
ture of comedy and tragedy. If you are ignor- 
ant, but want to write on love, war, business, 
sickness or death, you may find a public letter 
writer or an amanuensis. The people of the 
"evil eye" flourish here. You defend yourself 
against their influence by pointing outward the 
fore and little finger, keeping the rest of the 
hand closed. I entered a macaroni shop, a dirty 
place, with a dirty man, who made the dirty 
stuff. Just the thought of it haunts me. The 
poverty of these Neapolitans is appalHng. Chil- 



NAPLES AND VESUVIUS. 17I 

dren are born worse than orphans. They eat the 
refuse Hke Constantinople dogs, Hve in stolen 
rags, sleep on the street or church steps, die of 
starvation and then are dropped into the Cam.po 
Santo as we throw a shovelful of coal into a 
bin. 

The people are taxed to death on all they eat 
and drink and wear. If Italy was content to be 
herself in art and history and did not have a 
vaulting ambition for the prestige of other Eu- 
ropean powers, her condition would be far dif- 
ferent. Squalor and vice meet us at every cor- 
ner. The decencies of life are outraged in broad 
daylight. Above the vine and olive rises the 
odor of an alley in Chinatown, 'Frisco. 

We leave Naples for Vesuvius. Busy guides 
buzz around us who would make us beheve all 
the cardinal virtues bloomed in their soul, but 
their "Nobilissimo signor, il Monte" suggests a 
three-card monte man. "Excelsior," we climb 
and are met by whistlers, singers and players 
who sing the money out of our hands. "Excel- 
sior," over vine-clad hills, drinking in the sun 
and sticking their roots into warm lava soil, 
growing the grapes and the wine, "Lachryma 
Christi," of far-famed flavor, "Tears of Christ!" 
What a blasphemy it seems to us. Yet an Italian 
says it as easily as a Greek does Jupiter. The 



172 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

drink is more innocent than its name or the na- 
tives. In this mountain vineyard you drink it in 
its purity. Once more the Creator has worked 
his miracle of changing water into wine. The 
water here is always bad, and never worse than 
when these Gozzolinas reverse the Cana miracle 
and change the wine to water, a thing you often 
find when you reach your hotel. Still upward 
to the observatory, shrouded by a Muir glacier 
of black billowy lava, where wise men study the 
needle's vibrations which indicate the activity of 
the volcano. "Excelsior," along a trail of turbu- 
lent twisted lava, black as death and worse than 
Laocoon's struggle, to a place from which we 
view a white blue sky above, a broad blue bay 
beneath and Naples to the right with its curve 
and crag, and gray white houses nestling in 
olive and orange gardens. 

Vesuvius is above us with its smoke curling, 
fire belching peak in strange contrast with the 
sky above and fruit fields beneath. From this 
point you may climb by mule a la Pike's Peak 
or go by railcar wire-rope affair which pulls you 
up an angle of forty-five to sixty degrees until 
you are within three hundred feet of the crater. 
From this spot you may walk in ashes ankle 
deep or sit on men's shoulders and be carried in 
a chair. We walked to the music of Gehenna 



f . NAPLES AND VESUVIUS, 173 

groans, burned our shoes and fingers in the hot 
sand and steam, passed dangerous and deep 
places, ragged and ruinous crevices until we 
looked into the crater, which resembles a devil's 
circus ring. Goethe has well compared Vesuvi- 
us to a "peak of hell rising out of paradise." 
To me it was the fittest image of the lake that 
burns with fire and brimstone. It is difficult to 
think that this fire-crowned volcano, this shrine 
of Erebus, this sacrificial altar which claimed 
so many victims in 79 A. D., was once a fine and 
fertile field, the home of Sparticus, and orna- 
mented with a temple. 

Below lie Herculaneum and Pompeii, and 
we climbed down the mountain side. Guides 
ran ahead with clubs to ward ofif the 
robbers and torches to guide the way. 
My friend's horse slipped eight feet down 
the mountain side through his driver's 
drunken carelessness, causing him to utter some 
exclamations not found in Old or New Testa- 
ment writing. In the scramble I lost the silver 
tag of my valise bearing the initials "G. L. M." 
I suppose some native will wear it as a charm, 
or it may be dug up in the future as a relic. 

I strolled up the streets of tombs by old monu- 
ments to the gate of the old town and went 
through where Augustus, Cicero, Seneca, and 



174 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Pliny had gone, solacing, studying and satisfying 
themselves with the problems of government, 
literature and philosophy. The city has come 
forth like Lazarus from the grave. Houses, 
floors, bronze lamps, mosaics of beast and bird, 
frescoes of Venus and Adonis stare at us. We 
walk through narrow streets, see old chariot 
wheel ruts, foot-marked stepping stones and a 
wilderness of walls, broken pillars, statues, 
bronzes, cameos and Pompeiian color. The 
city was not large, its people were small, drove 
small vehicles, Hved in small houses, slept in 
small beds and attached small importance to the 
principles of Mount Sinai or the sermonic moun- 
tain. 

Yonder was an old Curiosity Shop filled with 
things the proprietor was too hurried to take in 
his fire escape. Fruits and nuts in glass jars, 
drugs and medicines, pill boxes and surgical in- 
struments. 

A bake shop with loaves of crisp, brown baked 
bread, with the maker's name stamped upon 
them. A wine room with jars bearing the name 
and date of the vintage, and a kind of depart- 
ment store with glass bottles, vases, spoons, 
springs, bells, buckles, rings, money chest, pots 
and pans, cuHnary outfit, candelabra, locks, ink- 
stands and earth lamps. You paid your money 



NAPLES AND VESUVIUS. 175 

and you took your choice. I am sure you had 
tO' pay, for not far away was the sign "Cave 
Canem" (look out for the dog). 

Looking at the vast amphitheater, forum, villa 
of Diomede, temple of Isis, we peopled the place 
•with Bulwer's Nydia, Glaucus, Arbaces and 
lone. They lived and labored and loved as men 
and women do now; the scene appealed to our 
hearts. Many of the inhabitants of Pompeii, like 
those of Herculaneum, had warning and fled. 
The faithful Roman soldiers remained at their 
posts of duty until death relieved them. 

The explorers of the buried city found these 
human forms encased in molds of ashes, so that 
when liquid plaster of Paris was poured in 
them there appeared the hfe-like figures of the 
ancient dead. In the ashes of Pompeii one reads 
the record of the ancient city. Her destruction 
was in truth her preservation. 

If the history of art is the history of civiliza- 
tion, then these poor people were beautiful bar- 
barians. Their frescoes, bronze and sculpture 
are evidences of moral suicide. If we were curi- 
ous in Egypt and startled in Greece, we were 
shocked by what we saw in the museum room at 
Naples and private compartments in Pompeii, 
Manly strength and w'omanly beauty were made 
"procuress to the I'ords of hell." 



176 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

It was midnight and all was still; I sat on 
deck of the big ship which seemed to rest on the 
blue water like a dove of peace: The sun had 
gone down, flooding the bay with golden splen- 
dor; the stars looked down softly on the twink- 
ling lights along the curved shore; the moon 
rose, filling the scene with frosted silver; Vesuvi- 
us held up her red lamp for me to read the pages 
of Italy's history until tired, I fell asleep to 
dream of home and heaven. 



CHAPTER XV. 
THE ETERNAL CITY. 

I have been in the Eternal City, have inhaled 
Forum dust, smelt Campagna decay, barked my 
shins on Coliseum ruins, choked my lungs with 
catacomb gas, strained my neck at Vatican pic- 
tures, crawled through Cloaca Maxima sewers 
until I wonder "where I'm at." I was driven 
to the Hotel Minerva, the place for a wise man, 
located near the Pantheon, where one who pants 
for immortality may be suited after death. My 
room was 99, assigned me by the porter, who in- 
troduced me to a femme de chambre, whose 
looks, words and actions pointed out everything 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 17; 

I might need or want for the next twenty-four 
hours or days. Rome is worse than "Lost in 
New York" without a guide. One is confused 
with buildings, fountains, parks, churches, 
stores, soldiers, priests and police. I wanted a 
real guide, not a fool, parrot or comedian, and I 
found him in Professor Reynaud, a gentleman 
of fine appearance, a scholar, one of the "noblest 
Romans of them all." The true American al- 
ways hustles, but I've learned that while others 
lazily bury their noses in their guide books the 
Yankee listens to the guide, looks around and 
takes in more in fifteen minutes than a "don't 
you know" does in thirty. 

St. Peter's is modern Rome. We visited its 
square, obelisk and cross, great fountains, porti- 
coes, columns and statues. The view of the 
dome without is diappointing, because it is hid 
be the facade, but within you find a world 
of bewildering beauty. Guide books and 
lecturers, pictures and photographs have de- 
scribed it all so often that I forbear. It must be 
seen to be appreciated. As to the architecture, 
I prefer the Gothic of the Middle Ages, that con- 
necting link between nature and religion. The 
ambition of St. Peter's builders was not always 
good. Pride, power and prodigality frequently 
reversed the proverb and robbed Paul to pay 



178 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Peter. The bronze of the Pantheon, the thrones 
of the Arabs and statues of Jupiter all find place 
in this wonderful building. 

There is no doubt that the popes were often 
the patrons and preservers of art. Madame de 
Stael describes the museum of the Vatican as, 
"That palace of statues where we see the hu- 
man form deified by paganism as are now the 
thoughts of the soul by Christianity." In this 
palace of art you find Laocoon, Apollo Belvi- 
dere, Raphael's Transfiguration, Angelo's fres- 
coes, deities, heroes, philosophers, statesmen, 
libraries and antiquities ad infinitum. 

The Pincian Hill is the central part of Rome. 
It is a passing show of all the climes and condi- 
tions of people in the world. The imperial band 
played splendidly, we listened and looked at the 
polyglot crowd, drove among statues, busts, 
trees and shrubs, when suddently my driver 
dropped his lines, removed his hat and said : "Le 
roi." I thought he was crazy and like a fellow 
riding backwards in a car who never sees any- 
thing until it has passed, I saw the vanishing 
royalty, and said : "Encore, le roi." He whipped 
his horse, drove to the other side of the park, 
where we met King Humbert face to face, and 
took off our hats. The king looked a little puz- 
zled, but concluded we were not anarchists with 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 179 

murderous intent. I wanted another view and 
said, "Encore" for a third time. Slowly we ap- 
proached his highness, I stood up in my car- 
riage and waved my American flag, in honor of 
which he touched his hat in recognition and 
smiled a fraternal gretting. Little did I then 
think of the foul murder that was so soon to 
follow. 

One evening, after dinner, I strolled out with 
a friend beyond Trajan's column to a glove store 
conducted by two pretty sisters. I put 'out my 
hands and they understood, then I rested my 
elbows, looked up into the face of one of them 
and was fitted while she looked down and smiled. 
They, I mean the white gloves, were so nice that 
I asked a second time and was fitted again with 
a dark pair, and her eyes to match. It was such 
a pleasant occupation that I thought I would 
make it "three times and out," and asked for an- 
other pair. My friend. Fish, was as nervous as 
one of his kinsmen out of water, but I said: 
"That's all right, we are here for business." The 
girls were delighted, but I could not make either 
of them understand what other kind I wanted. 
They tried nearly all the shapes and colors of 
gloves in the store until at last, in despair, I un- 
buttoned my vest and began to pull off my coat, 
when presto, vite, a box of "undressed" kids was 



i8o TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

offered me and, 'mid a flush and flutter all 
around, I was once more hand in glove with 
the establishment and went out with a new ex- 
perience and three pairs of good gloves for about 
a dollar and fifty cents. 

Rome, Pagan, Christian, and modern is 
the shrine for twenty centuries of military, 
mental and moral genius; the place for 
artist, pilgrim, poet and scholar. Compare 
Rome to the Niobe of nations and say 
she sits 'mid deserted ruins like a lonely 
campfire of a past nation, the past wins your re- 
spect and the present calls forth your sympathy. 
They builded better than they knew. They had 
some master masons who could build walls, 
arches, and aqueducts which are giants of stone 
masonry surviving armies, storms and nature's 
decay; symbols of a power that drew and 
dragged a Zenobia and Jugurtha and hold us 
captive today. 

Rome has many churches. "Domine Quo 
Vadis," with Peter's big No. lo foot 
prints, a big inspiration to novelists and 
dramatists; "St Peter's in Vinculo," with its 
chains, but most of all, its Angelo's Moses, that 
simple, serene, sublime statue which withstands 
all criticism and compels us to say with its mak- 
er, "speak thou canst;" "St. Paul's without the 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 



i«i 



walls," a dream in marble, a forest o\ columns 
and wilderness of mosaics ; St. John Lateran, 
with shrines, relics and statues; the "Sancta 
Scala" of Pilate, where the faithful crawled on 
hands and knees counting their beads, where Lu- 
ther was converted and partly up which an irrev- 
erent tourist of our party walked with hat and 
shoes on. Material structures everywhere, but 
"Giod is a spirit;" I heard music and saw vest- 
ments, in fact everything- except the "sirnplicity 
of the Gospel." But the morning cometh. 

Even a good man can get lonesome in church, 
and I was glad to meet my Chicago friend, Mr. 
Goodspeed, who said he hadn't seen me for fif- 
teen years until I was racing through Cairo with 
my American flag. That reminds me of a mu- 
tual friend in Rome and Egypt, the Obelisk, 
eleven of which have adorned the Imperial City. 
They are messengers of the past from Joseph 
and Moses. Rome the Eternal is a modern vil- 
lage compared with these milestones that mark 
the path of Egypt to eternity in that early time 
when the day of thought struggled through the 
night of superstition as it does here and now. 
The Roman arch is famous; the Coliseum has 
eighty of them, and since I took the Royal Arch 
degree in Masonry I've learned to appreciate 
them. "Arch of Constantine," who went to 



i82 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

make a new Rome but gave the old one a state 
religion; "Arch of Titus," erected by his brother 
Domitian to commemorate Titus' conquest of 
Jerusalem.; its sad relief of the sacred candle- 
sticks carried on the shoulders of exulting heath- 
en, a commentary on the "nations that forget 
God." 

Rome's rule conquered and civilized from the 
Pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates and the 
chalk cliffs of Scotland to the cataracts of the 
Nile. 

The Palatine was the place for the patricians, 
the "400" whose sign was "no plebs need ap- 
ply." It is excavated and is used as a museum 
of famous antiquities. I was so interested in the 
thought of Domitian and Nero that I pressed a 
lady's hand, while helping lier over the ruins un- 
til she asked me if I had not made a mistake 
and taken her hand for a lemon. It was a tight 
squeeze. 

Rome's two conquerors were arms and art; 
Rome means churches, cathedrals, palaces, pic- 
tures, statuary, mosaic and tapestry. This is 
the artist's paradise, and home folks may have 
clear ideas from photos, for old Sol is often 
more accurate than a coarse brush. The two 
sources of beauty, shape and color, are often met 
and one finds the realization that moral beauty 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 183 

is not hostile to love for artistic beauty. As 
usual, you may find the fates and not the graces, 
a Clotho with green goggles, a deaf Lachesis 
and a silly Atropos ogling one statue, fingering 
another and criticising a third. 

Scene — "What work is this?" punching it with 
a blue umbrella. 

"That, madam, is Nydia, the blind girl of Pom- 
peii." 

"What did he say?" shouts a deaf one. 

"Nubia, the blind girl of Bombay," responds 
No. 3, trying to be civil. 

But who can forget the "Dying Gladiator," 
immortalized by Byron, or the "Antinous," with 
its perfect anatomy and sweet, sad look? 

With arms and art there is artifice, shadow as 
well as sunlight. Many of Rome's streets are 
crooked, narrow, dirty and dark. Via Sacra, 
over which Horace and Caesar walked, is sacred 
only in name; the Appian way was once a regal 
road, but now ornamented with the remains of 
aqueducts and tombstones, and the tomb of Cae- 
cilia Metella has been robbed of its marble for 
lime and buildings. This must have been the 
place where "the sheeted dead did squeak and 
gibber in the streets of Rome." The city is real- 
ly a cemetery of a nation where it is hard to dis- 



i84 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

tinguish between the ashes of a dog and the re- 
mains of Nero or a Christian. 

No, Rome wasn't "built in a day," for 
much time was required to take even a 
glimpse of the Temple of Vesta, whose chaste 
light still burns. Bridging the Tiber is San An- 
gelo two thousand years old whose arches ech- 
oed to the thunder of brave Horatius, The 
baths of Caracalla are great in their ruins and 
remind you of the time when nobility swam or 
ate and drank while listening to lectures and 
music. How the heart thrills with memories of 
the Forum, that stage where kings played trage- 
dy, but which looks today like a sunken square 
with columns and arches like so many vege- 
tables in a Dutch cellar. The Temple of Saturn 
was once the national treasury, but now is bank- 
rupt with only eight figureless columns left. 
There stands the arch of Septimus Severus with 
the bronze car of victory gone off to inglorious 
defeat. I paused at Augustus' golden milestone, 
that hub from which all roads led like so many 
spokes to the circle of the known world. I 
climbed on the Rostra platform where Cicero 
and Caesar had thundered eloquence, and I had 
just commenced to make a few remarks when 
I was called down. Hadrian's Tomb is a big 
thing one thousand feet in circumference. It has 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 185 

been robbed of its marble and statues, and I 
saw Mr. H.'s giant head in the Vatican, its place 
being usurped by a statue of the Archangel 
Michael sheathing his sword. 

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy 
and I took a cab one night and went to Con- 
stanzi Teatro to hear La Boheme. The orches- 
tration was superb. These Italians are fine 
musicians and the leader was a veritable 
Damrosch. He was a bundle of nerves; head, 
arms and legs were on so many wires, while his 
whole body swayed and jumped as if he stood on 
tacks or had swallowed an electric machine. 
Fernando de Lucia was the tenor, and the finest 
I ever heard since Campanini. There was a big 
audience of boxes, two upper tiers and pit. The 
people were peculiar in their applause of mouth, 
hand and glove. Some men rose between the 
acts with their hats on and instead of going out 
for a drink, stared around above and below. 
My Italian libretto was of little account, but 
music is the universal language which every- 
body understands. I enjoyed my surroundings, 
the refreshments and the crowd. The men were 
indifferent looking, but the women were richly 
jeweled and poorly dressed; that is, half dressed. 
There was plenty of good form and complexion, 
but apart from eyes, dark and lustrous, I saw no 



i86 TRACKS OP A TENDERFOOT. 

Italian beauties. Surely "the play's the thing" 
in Italy and' many seem to attend it more fre- 
quently and contribute more liberally to its sup- 
port than to the churches. 

Near the pyramid of Cestius, that marble 
structure one hundred and fourteen feet 
high and older than the Christian era, I 
found the Protestant cemetery. Here is 
the grave of Keats, "whose name was writ in 
water," and yet like that element his fame sur- 
rounds the world; the grave of Shelley with its 
"Cor cordium," whose song like his skylark 
sings high toward heaven. Sweet and suggest- 
ive resting place, and why should not Nature 
be her sweetest to the poets who translated Na- 
ture to humble, prosaic hearts? However, if 
you are not a poet, there is Capuchin convent, 
a human bone-yard whose foundations and deco- 
rations furnish endless, "Alas poor Yoricks" for 
soliloquizing Hamlets; or the Catacombs which 
honeycomb the city with miles of graves, paths, 
chapels, shelves, and symbols of Christians who 
lived here by day, visited by night and were 
burned between times. 

The Coliseum is only another name for a 
cemetery. It gives you the first, firmest idea of 
Rome's cruel power. It is a tragedy in stone, 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 187 

and, thank God, will never rise again to disgrace 
humanity. 

In Rome you are robbed with no redress; 
dirty beggars, begotten of centuries of temporal 
and clerical oppression villainously smile and 
jabber with a smelter-like breath whose gas and 
vapor deaden everything around. Is it not 
strange that Jerusalem and Rome, the two most 
Christian cities at one time, are today in some 
respects the most degraded? 

One afternoon Prof. P , my musical friend, 

told me that Guiseppe Resta was to give a piano 
recital at the Constanzi. I said, "Prof., let's go. 
I'll wear glasses and look literary, and your long 
hair will stamp you as musical. We will appear 
as 'Americano critique le papier." So we intro- 
duced ourselves to the doorkeeper who listened 
to our lingo and looked at us as if we were a 
pair of harmless lunatics. He pointed us in the 
direction of a big female who guided us to the 
manager in chief. He put out his hand to me, 
I gripped it and said, "Bon jour, Americano 
critique le papier," and produced my pencil and 
pad. Visions of laudatory press notices must 
have flashed over his mind, for he said brokenly, 
"Ferry well." I first thought he meant, "Fare 
thee well," until he personally conducted us up 
the middle aisle to two of the best seats in the 



i88 Tracks of a tenderfoot. 

house. "Merci," I said. "Mercy," I felt. I 
kept my glasses on and the professor his hair. 
We listened to the music, looked very wise and 
made a few musical notes. Resta's playing was 
full of fire and feeling and showed good tech- 
nique. I was glad to be introduced to him at 
the close of the concert and say, "bravo." 

We took in the Saturday show of the Corso, 
that Broadway, State street and Nicollet avenue 
combined, with more of startling contrast in the 
rank and file of the people, cafes, stores and 
sights. It was a relief to find an English Episco- 
pal church near by in which we could rest. 

We met some Neapolitan boys and girls who 
thought we were artists and followed and begged 
us to paint their pictures. They were pretty and 
picturesque, brown faced, black hair and eyes 
and gaudy dress. I told them we were not ar- 
tists, but "Americano critiquos" and they finally 
left us expecting we would call for them Mon- 
day. Sure "the paths of glory lead but to the 
grave." We spent an hour in finding Augustus 
Caesar's tomb, inquired many times and at last 
found our way into an old rubbish heap of an 
amphitheater. It was growing dark and I want- 
ed a light and thought of a Roman candle, but 
feared if I used it in this dangerous place, I 
might be like the poor Irishman, who "Lit one 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 189 

of them Roman candles to see what candles them 
Romans used" and was later found by his faith- 
ful Bridget hunting under the table for his eye. 

It's easy to preach and practice, "When you 
are in Rome do as the Romans do," and so after 
dinner we took a cab and went to "Marco Vis- 
conti," at the Theater Nazionale. I wanted more 
music and got it. It was late, I was tired, and 
started to leave the house, when my friend said: 
"Wait till you see the ballet." I wondered 
what he meant. I said: "I will wait for just a 
few minutes, it's 11 o'clock now, and I want to 
be asleep by 12." The ballet came. The longer 
I waited the more I wondered. When the cur- 
tain was rung down I looked at my watch; it 
was I o'clock Sunday morning. 

We spent the morning looking at Raphael's 
frescoes, which though dimmed with years, 
preach a literal gospel of the higher life to all 
who will see and understand. Later saw Guide's 
"Aurora" above reflected in the Rospiglioso 
mirror beneath. This was a morning, moving 
picture which led one to think it was time to 
get up and take a drive, which we did. 

The Capitol hill at Rome is a scene of shadow 
and sun light. Its temple crowned top; Tar- 
peian Rock for traitors and Square with historic 
bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius. In the Capi- 



190 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

tol Museum is the famous Hall of Emperors, a 
bust gallery of notorious Roman profligates. I 
am not surprised that sight of them, and mem- 
ory of what they were led Gibbon to write, "The 
DecHne and Fall of the Roman Empire." 

Progress is slow but sure. Victor Emmanuel 
said, "Let there be light." He had to do with a 
people who were lazy, lying and lascivious; all 
they seemed to want was a place to sleep, plenty 
of macaroni and "damned be he that first cries, 
'Hold, enough.' " The new government took for 
its motto, "God helps those who help them- 
selves," and He did. The ideal has not been 
reached, but railroads, good harbors, new build- 
ings, manufactures, foreign and domestic com- 
merce, schools, churches and freedom of the 
press show material, mental and moral advance 
which urge toward greater deeds and higher 
manhood. 

I made arrangements to see the Pope, but had 
an illustration of the pathetic lines, "You 
can't most always always sometimes tell;" 
smallpox jDrevented. So far we had had 
a fine cruise through Egypt, Palestine, 
Asia, and Greece; not a ripple had ruffled 
the sea of our happiness, except sea-sickness. 
But death is always a possibilit}. The disease 
contracted at Alexandria broke out just before 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 191 

we reached Naples. We providentially managed 
to get a clean bill of healtn and our baggage, but 
at Rome some of our number were taken sud- 
denly, seriously, and fatally ill. If we had not 
taken legbail, the board of health would have 
quarantined our hotels and made me like Paul, 
"Prisoner at Rome," Mr. Frank C. Clark, the 
conductor of our New England party, did all he 
agreed to and much more ; he was always a gen- 
tleman, genial and generous, honest and helpful 
to his party whom he treated as members of his 
family. I shall be glad to go with him 
"Around the World in Eighty Days," or a 
longer time. 

With a meaning that the poet Rogers never 
intended, I felt, "I am in Rome, a thousand 
thoughts rush on my mind, a thousand images, 
and I spring up as girt to run a race." I called 
a cab, gave the driver a tip, threw myself and 
luggage on the seat and was driven to the depot 
with race course speed. The train was a mass 
of frightened passengers and disordered bag- 
gage. Soon the engine pulled out of the 
City of the Caesars. Fruit cake, and 
Chianti were next in order. I was tired. 
I looked up, my friend's head was thrown 
back, his mouth looked like an old- 



192 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

fashioned carpet bag and from its depths came 
out a snore, "Vale, et Vale." 



CHAPTER XVI. 
IN WONDERFUL FLORENCE. 

I went to Hotel de Italy, the former palace of 
Prince Murat and Queen Caroline. By mistake 
I was assigned a kind of jail room, No. 75, below 
the street of Lung Arno. I existed in "durance 
vile" till early next morning, when I rang the con- 
cierge and was received by a maid and boy who 
took me to lucky No. 13, carrying my grip, 
pants, umbrella and vest in a kind of proces- 
sion before me. Opposite my window I saw the 
house of Amerigo Vespucci; he was gone, but 
not the girl in the window who spent her time in 
sweet nothingness till the band came by, fol- 
lowed by Italian soldiers; she waved her handker 
chief, I waved my flag; the captain recognized 
me and the boys her, smiled and marched on. 

I had the Continental breakfast, not worth a 
continental, of coffee, bread and honey. Food 
in Italy, as a rule, is small in quantity and poor 
in quality, disguised by high seasoning and 
made as indigestible as palatable. The Italians 
are too lazy to eat much. They have to take 




FKKDING PIGEONS AT ST. MARK'S 



IN WONDERFUL FLORENCE. 193 

something or die, but eating seems a matter of 
necessity and not of choice. Fruit is their staff 
of hfe, and is to the Italian what potatoes are to 
Ireland. The natives serve you with grapes, 
peaches, figs, quinces, pomegranates and a con- 
fectionery paste, all very good and abundant, 
and which, like everything else except frames, 
paintings and statues, goes by weight 

Drink is the main thing; more is spent for 
wine than bread or fruit, but it is a harmless 
wash, and non-alcoholic, for they use it soon after 
it is made, and it is innocent compared with bev- 
erages found elsewhere on the continent or in 
America. 

I drove around the city and conquered and 
complimented my driver by saying, "Bunco 
Italia." He was as noisy as his brothers. A sound 
like Bedlam broke loose came down the narrow 
streets of the city like low C through a tuba. 
Boys' cries of Gazettes, cigarettes and matches; 
men's cries of brooms, rooster-coombs, chestnut 
pudding, squashes, baked pears, figs, grapes and 
rolled squash seeds, assaulted our ears until we 
implored high heaven for temporary deafness. 
Even this was denied us by a little boy who got 
his English mixed and came to me saying, 
"Good-Bye," and left me, adding, "How do you 
do." Flower girls were in abundance selling 



194 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

their wares, in all the variety of orange, lemon 
and laurel. You might as well be without your 
coat as without a flower ; the flower girl will stop 
you on the street or come to you in the cafe and 
put a rose bud in your button-hole, unless you 
resist her. 

You may pay then or later in the season when 
for all your decoration she comes in an irresis- 
tible way and you settle for value received. There 
are some beautiful women here, but, as a rule, 
they are hideous when not homely. I learned 
that marriage was based on dowry and not on 
divine standards. Their proverb says: "Mar- 
riage is the tomb of love;" Byron said: "They 
marry for their parents and they love for them- 
selves." Society, too, largely consists of smoke, 
drink, gambling and free love; a paradise for 
people who like that kind of thing. 

The markets of Florence are as curious as 
their mosaics; long lanes lined with boxes, bas- 
kets and barrels, filled with flowers, fish, fowl, 
flesh and fruit and as many kinds of curious peo- 
ple to sell them. Near by are stands where the 
hungry may buy a fried cake of coagulated blood 
or a roasted fat cat with some favorite fritters 
soaked in grease. I was hungry, but insisted on 
vegetarian diet. No, thank you, I said, give me 
liberty, limburger or death. While ignorant and 



IN WONDERFUL FLORENCE. 195 

helpless and in need of a wise companion, I was 
approached by a man who had little owls for sale. 
They may be had for a song-, but I preferred my 
own thoughts for a pet. 

One morning I overslept and my party left 
without me. I started to overtake them, walked 
in a circle for half an hour and came out by the 
bridge two squares from my hotel. 

I was in just the frame of mind to go to 
church, and so went where I could learn the 
stony record of Florence's birth, life, and death. 
San Lorenzo, with the tombs of the de Medici, 
and Angelo's colossal figures of Day, Night, 
Dawn and Twihght; San Marco, with the pulpit 
of Savonarola, where he thundered of righteous- 
ness and judgment: Duomo, that marble mosaic 
with its daring dome by Brunelleschi. Campa- 
nile, that beautiful bell tower which Giotto hung 
three hundred feet in the air, and many others. 

I went to a barber shop, where the butcher 
held the razor upside down and carved me after 
he had pared my fingernails. These bar- 
bers bleed you professionally and ignorantly 
killed Cavour. Dentists draw your teeth and 
physicians prescribe for what may be left if you 
are not already dead. One expects to see much 
sickness where water is regarded as "great med- 
icine" and only used externally or internally as 



196 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

a last resort. When I asked my bloody bene- 
factor how much I owed, he replied "Niente, 
signore" (nothing, sir,) I was embarrassed, 
wanted to be generous, hesitated, fumbled my 
money and ended by giving five times the value 
received, the rascal grinning and bowing thanks 
all the time. 

But there are better. Florentines are proud 
of their citizenship as Americans, Greeks and 
Romans are of theirs, and why not? Their Dante 
gave glimpses of heaven and hell; Boccaccio of 
love and lust; Machiavelli of plotting politics; 
Petrarch of his loved Laura; Galileo of starry 
sky; Savonarola of piety and patriotism; Ameri- 
go Vespucci gave a name to our country; Giot- 
to planted the lily of the Campanile; Brunel- 
leschi spanned the dome of the Duomo; Ghiberti 
swung his bronze gates ; Angelo carved the mov- 
ing marble, and Bartolommeo, Delsarto and Da 
Vinci painted the canvas never to fade from 
memory's gallery. 

I frequently worshipped in the sanctuary of 
Florence sculpture, of which Thorwaldsen says, 
"Clay is birth, plaster is death, marble is the 
resurrection." Here is the Loggia of the Lan- 
cers, an arcade of arches filled with the master 
art of "Rape of the Sabines," "Perseus" and 
"Polyexina and Achilles." Along thorough- 



IN WONDERFUL FLORENCE. 107 

fares and porticoes are statues of her leading 
men — while towering as Saul above his breth- 
ren, is Angelo's statue of David, cut from the 
eighteen-foot block of rejected marble. Where 
art is not in the stone itself, you find it on the 
facades of buildings where gods and men are 
frescoed in amazing outline and color. 

When it comes to painting Florence is heir 
of art's history. Her galleries are in places which 
were made possible by the wealth and power of 
the Medici. A study of the tourists here was 
as interesting to me as the pictures on exhibi- 
tion; the absurd criticisms of some, the pretend- 
ed rapture of others, the glance of the blase trav- 
eler and the unfeigned horror of pater and mater 
familias as their offspring viewed the nude mar- 
ble or the blushing canvas. Tlie Ufizzi gallery 
is a shrine of painting and sculpture, of gems, 
vases and bronzes from ancient masters. The 
halls are filled with busts of emperors and em- 
presses, original drawings from De Vinci and 
Raphael, bust of Alexander dying, and group 
of Niobe and her fated children. The Tribune 
with its mosaic pavement, mother of pearl dome, 
gilded walls and ceiling is the gem of the whole 
collection. Within its magic circle, solitary and 
unique stand the master pieces of Raphael, Cor- 
reggio, Del Sarto and Angelo; the Wrestlers, 



igB TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Dancing Fawn, Appollino and Scythian whet- 
ting a knife. Titian's Venus, with shameless atti- 
tude and coloring, stares you out of countenance, 
while the Venus de Medici welcomes you with a 
face and form at once the delight and despair of 
modern artists. 

There is an enclosed walk between galleries of 
art over the Arno river, leading to the Pitti gal- 
lery. This palace was the former residence of 
the king and queen when Florence was the cap- 
ital of united Italy. It is a noble building, filled 
with the luxury of art, statues and paintings, 
mosaics, precious stones in greatest profusion. 
One can never forget the maternal Madonna 
look of Raphael's masterpiece. I am not sur- 
prised that when the old prince who lived here 
was told by his priest of a glorious heaven, he 
replied, "I would be satisfied if I could remain 
in the Pitti." Yet with all this art, there are 
some Italians who have never seen it, don't care 
to visit it, and if they did would probably appre- 
ciate it about as much as the sheep did the open 
heavens over Bethlehem's plain. 

Much of the history of Florence proves that 
art is not necessarily religious and that cities 
may be white with classic marbles and dark with 
cursed meanness. I visited mediaeval palaces, 
rocky and red with tragedy; Polozzia Vecchio, 



IN WONDERFUL FLORENCE. 199 

for six hundred years the senate of the republic 
and official residence of the Medici, contained 
the tower where the sainted Savonarola was tor- 
tured for forty days. The volume of Guelph and 
Ghibeline history of Florence is written in blood, 
punctuated with tears and held together with the 
strings of broken hearts. 

We walked by peddlers with hands and arms 
full of different dogs which they were trying to 
sell, but I found they all had the same kind of 
fleas. We passed by windows filled with ques- 
tionable pictures which the Italian St, Anthony 
Comstock had evidently overlooked; saw a mu- 
sical family who played, sung and danced on the 
street for the coppers we threw them, but were 
driven ofif by the police to make way for the rich 
who rode by with two drivers and a poodle dog 
between them ; and attended a grand concerto 
where Olga von Turk Rohn gave a classic and 
artistic program. She was a musical gem in black 
velvety dress, beads, silver, diamonds and tres em- 
bonpoint. Coming out I bought a little looking 
glass which drew a big crowd before I could 
make the proper change. Something was lack- 
ing. I offered an umbrella check, but the man 
wanted my umbrella, too, and so I compromised 
on a pack of cigarettes which a friend had given 
me to give away. 



200 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

We attended a theater party that night, a two 
box affair, but by mistake entered the wrong box 
and the soldiers escorted us up stairs. It was a 
frosty time and I hid behind the curtain, Polo- 
nius like, with hat and coat on to keep warm. 
Massenet's music was fantastic and with little 
melody. The play dragged on through the old 
story of misplaced love. Finally the hero killed 
himself three hours too late; a thing he should 
have thought of in the first act. It was worth 
our life to get a cab to get back to the hotel. An 
urchin hailed one for me and when it came a 
young hoodlum said it was for another, and it 
resulted in a whip fight. The matter was finally 
adjusted and we got the carriage and rested in 
peace until the driver opened the door in front 
of the hotel and demanded three times the usual 
price and would probably have knocked us down 
and robbed us if the hotel concierge, having 
heard our altercation, had not come out and 
made him do the right thing. 

I crossed Ponte Vecchio, the oldest and odd- 
est of the six bridges over the Arno. A double 
decker, with art galleries above, jewelry shops 
beneath, filled with mosaics of all that art and 
nature can represent, and where 'mid all the pre- 
cious stones the turquoise is the prevailing one. 
This stone is beautiful and inexpensive here, and 



IN WONDERFUL FLORENCE. 201 

I exchanged a few American rocks for scarf pins 
and serpent headed ornaments. I stood on this 
bridge at midnight, above me the silver moon, 
beneath me the yellow Arno small then, but 
angry in freshet times, and recalled George Eli- 
ot's "Romola" and how Ti'to leaped here from 
the mob into death. 

Gardens, walks and drives abound ; Boboli 
garden, back of the Pitti with its trees, flowers, 
ponds and statuary inviting to rest; Villa Tor- 
rigini welcoming the wit, the wealth and wick- 
edness of the city; Lung Arno, what the Seine is 
to Paris, leading to the Cascine; the Cascine, 
the Italian Bois de Boulogne, filled with military 
music, fashion and folly of those who eat, drink 
and are merry, careless of when and how they 
die. Surrounding hills are famous for olives and 
flowers and the homes of great men and women 
— Hawthorne, Browning, Salvini and others. 
Galileo's villa, where he studied and communed 
with Milton ; masters of science and poetry, both 
to be later physically eclipsed, but each possess- 
ing an inner light which no blindness could 
darken ; Tuscan's hills ; Castle of Vincigliata ; 
monastry oi La Certosa ; Height of San Miniato, 
with its famous church, splendid drive and 
spacious square, in the center of which is the fine 
bronze copy of David; while across the valley 



202 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

loom the heights of Fiesole with their white- 
walled villas mantled with vine and olive on the 
white backgrovmd of the snowy Apennines in 
the far distance. 

"Vines, flowers, air, skies that fling such wild 
enchantment o'er Boccaccio's tales of Florence 
and the Arno," make a never-to-be-forgotten 
frame of my pictured visit. In this spirit I read 
Robert Browning's "Andrea del Sarto" by the 
big, historic table in the bridal chamber of 
Queen Caroline. Then I took a cab and visited 
the house where Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
wrote her immortal "Casa Guidi Windows." 
Later I visited the Protestant cemetery where 
she lies buried. Dead she still speaks. Her 
worth shines like a star at night. More endur- 
ing and beautiful than the flower-strewn marble 
sarcophagus which rises above her body is the 
memory of a woman who' was called "Shake- 
speare's daughter," who "made her poetry the 
golden ring between Italy and England." 



CHAPTER XVII. 
PISA, GENOA AND MILAN. 

"Parlate Italiano?" — no, but there were three 
occasions on which I wish I did and they were 



PISA, GENOA AND MILAN. 203 

Pisa, Genoa and Milan. A beautiful ride of three 
hours through fertile valleys with their pretty 
towns, picturesque mountains and hills with 
nestling cities and castles and we came to Pisa, 
the once powerful, now puny in respect to ships, 
commerce and armies. 

We were driven at once to the Leaning Tow- 
er, one hundred and eighty feet high and thir- 
teen feet off the perpendicular; it is seven 
hundred years old and has always been on 
this jag, no one knowing whether it settled or 
was built that way. Mrs. W. was too tired to 
climb the eight stories, but her daughter. Miss 
W., was very anxious to. The mother looked to 
me and said: 

"Doctor, you take her and act towards her as 
your own daughter." 

We climbed up the foot-worn stairs, admired 
the granite and marble fluted columns, and saw 
a most magnificent view of river, valley, moun- 
tain and plain. I was venturesome and walked 
on the outside of the iron railing, saw the big 
chime of bells, leaned over the lower side of the 
tower, and wondered where I would go if I fell 
off. 

Descending, we were met by the party and 
visited the old cathedral which stands like an 
obelisk, a commentary on the departed grand- 



204 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

eur of the city. The thing which struck me most 
was the pendulum lamp which swung into Gali- 
leo's mind a world of science and mechanical 
force as he compared its vibrations with the pul- 
sations of his own heart. 

The baptistery is a rich rotunda with a marble 
pulpit, a mosaic baptistery and something more 
marvelous than both, the wonderful echo. I 
whistled and it sounded like a calliope, sang and 
had a cathedral organ, slammed the seat and it 
sounded like a cannon. 

The Campo Santo invited us with its sar- 
cophagi, and frescoes of biblical scenes, vivid in 
conception and rude in execution. Here is a lit- 
eral "God's lap of earth," in the fifty-three ship- 
loads of sacred soil which the crusaders brought 
from Jerusalem for their burial. On our way to 
the depot we paused at church Stefano. I bribed 
the sexton and climbed up a dirty garret-like 
place to the organ loft. The instrument was an 
old, odd afifair; the pedals and stops looked like 
cross ties and bars of yellow soap, but the tone 
was smooth and sweet. To the "Ave Marias" 
beneath I responded with : "O Promise Me," and 
the effect of the "linked sweetness long drawn 
out" through the aisles was most astonishing. 
I took some photos, bought some marble fruit, 
cherries, apples and pears, natural and life-size; 



PISA, GENOA AND MILAN. 205 

picked up a miniature in marble of the leaning 
tower ; got a bottle of mineral water at half price, 
because, as the salesman said, "He don't make 
so much noise," and entered the car with my 
party plus two priests and eight foreigners. 
Traveling makes one social, although I heard an 
English dude say : "I hope they won't think 
I'm an American." No fear. 

Genoa is a substantial city with narrow, cork- 
screw streets and high houses looking down on 
you as the crests of the Royal Gorge. This is 
the birthplace of Columbus. I saw his house, an 
autograph letter in the museum, and stood in the 
park from which he looked beyond the white- 
caps far out at sea for a land of commerce, civ- 
ilization and Christianity. There are many pal- 
aces of pink marble with historic frescoes and 
salons filled with mosaics and art, masterpieces 
of painting and statuary. As usual, we found 
"good" churches; that on the Anuziato, with a 
ceiling of marble; the cathedral of San Lorenzo 
with its famous pictures, frescoes, pillars, organ, 
and chapel containing the marble chest in which 
repose the bones of St. John the Baptist, the 
chain which bound him as prisoner, and a dupli- 
cate of holy relics which I found all through 
Italy. Famine breeding Friar Tucks abound 
and the poor people much more so. Around the 



2o6 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

city I met deformed men, bearded women and 
some pretty girls, blonde and brown types, eyes 
blue and black. All of them were veiled in a 
misty fabric through which they dreamily gazed, 
as they cheerfully chatted. The park, with its 
music, ices and social flirtations, is the place 
of meeting, the only drawback being the vile to- 
bacco smoke, which here, as elsewhere in Italy, 
resembles boiled cabbage or a burning barn. 

The cemetery is one of the finest in the world, 
with its marble corridor around a square of 
ground. The floor consists of marble slabs bear- 
ing inscriptions of the dead. On either side are 
tombs and figures in the fairest and most artistic 
form to perpetuate the memory of the dead. It 
is a hall of statuary or temple of fame well worth 
a visit. 

From being a world conqueror, Genoa has 
settled down into the manufacture of velvets and 
fancy filigree silverware. The gallery of paint- 
ings had some fine works, but their impression 
was marred by the guide, who had lingual diffi- 
culties of his own. He referred to a great man, 
saying: "He die of disease of Httlepox," and strik- 
ing an attitude before a famous picture he said : 
"Dis picture paint tree hundred years ago by 
hisself, Paul Very Uneasy (Paul Veronese), and 
nefer been touch-ed since," 



1 PISA, GENOA AND MILAN. 207 

He pressed a spring and a secret door flew 
open in the wall which revealed a glass case 
which contained the great Paginini's violins. 
What a mad genius he was. He no more played 
like other people than the violin is like other in- 
struments. 

The last thing I saw in Genoa from my car 
window was an emigrant woman carrying a 
naked baby under her arm, and near by a fat 
student, a lean consumptive, three swarthy men 
and one other, who said : "Addios," to his three 
male friends, who each in turn kissed him on 
both cheeks. 

Milan is well called the Paris of Italy. After 
a dusty ride I was driven to the hotel and or- 
dered a bath. The maid gave me everything but 
soap, and after much effort I secured some about 
as big and thick as a postage stamp. It was a 
good sample, but she practiced homoeopathy in 
this as some other things, and I could get no 
more. I took it good naturedly and she, too, 
for you must laugh to grow fat in Italy. At any 

rate, this was the philosophy of Miss in 

a cold room, whom I heard say: "I'll hug any- 
thing warm," and she got around the stove. 

The climate of Italy is not a synonym for 
heaven. Wind, rain and smoky chimneys make 
you understand the original of Dante's Inferno. 



2o8 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Bare-headed beggars, shoeless, shivering, starv- 
ing children are a sad sight. They furnished me 
with a soapstone box of a stove to warm my feet 
by, and for my hands I was given a "Scaldini" 
life preserver shaped like a little earthern pot. 
It is used in summer to hold milk or omelette 
and in winter is filled with burning charcoal or 
hot ashes. 

It was Palm Sunday and we attended the ca- 
thedral. Curious cross decorations of yellow palm 
or straw, placed on olive branches were carried 
in procession, through the aisles of the church ; 
the organ, censers, candles, robed priests, and 
crowd, the colored light falling through high 
windows over all, were a grand "amen" to Car- 
dinal Ferari's blessing, and from our hearts there 
came the response, "Hosanna to the Lord 
Christ." 

Milan has some fine drives on which are the 
fourteenth century castle, and old Roman theater 
in which races and regattas are now held; La 
Scala theater with its seven rows accommodating 
four thousand people ; Arch of Peace built to im- 
mortalize glory and victory ; St. Lawrence col- 
umns with their ruins of the Roman temple 
epoch; and the Arcade gallery of Victor Em- 
manuel with its blocks of beautiful buildings all 
glass roofed and marble walked, under which 



PISA, GENOA AND MILAN. 209 

are cafes with tables for the many to eat and 
drink. 

Students of church history love to visit the 
Ambrose Library with its rare manuscripts, 
drawings and signatures. All people irrespective 
of creed and culture wend their way to the fa- 
mous cathedral of Milan. It has been compared 
to a forest of graceful needles or a marble poem. 

I climbed one hundred and eighty-two 
marble steps to the roof, and then to the 
top of the minaret. Beneath me were 
spired steeples, statuary, doors, windows, corners 
and crevices which Raphael, Canova, Angelo and 
their pupils had filled with birds, beasts, fruits 
and flowers in living likeness and size. I de- 
scended and entered the building to find it in 
keeping with the outside ; wonderful windows of 
color, size and scenes, figured pavements, fluted 
columns, and all that heart could wish, mind plan 
and hand execute. On one side there is a sculp- 
ture by Phidias made in brown marble of a 
skinned man with his muscles arteries, fiber and 
frame, chiselled in a way to paralyze you. 

Under the grand altar is the crypt containing 
the mummified remains of the sainted Bishop 
Borromeo, lying in his rock crystal coffin covered 
with a Klondike of gold and of gems. This 
wealth and that which I saw in the treasury, was 



210 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

more than enough to help all Italy's poor. There 
is collected here an unusual amount of thorns ; 
robes, nails, bits of the true cross a;id sacred 
handkerchiefs, the bones of Judas and the fingers 
of St. Paul. 

More famous than the cathedral is Leonardo 
da Vinci's picture of the Last Supper. I saw 
what was left of it in the refectory. It had been 
painted in distemper on a kitchen wall and the 
smoke, the years, the stabling of Napoleon's 
horses, which tried to nibble the table and kick 
oflf the apostles' legs, leave only a part of its 
original greatness. Though dim and disfigured 
it is divine. Men and women were copying it, 
and few homes are without its engraving. 

Our engine awoke the echoes of Lombardy 
plains and carried us to Como. Our boat, Lecco, 
swan-like, sailed through clear, cold water by 
gorgeous mountains of snow and ice with sum- 
mits lost in clouds, inviting villages and inter- 
esting peasants. With azure sky above us and 
emerald green soil beneath us, we landed at Bel- 
lagio, the beautiful. Tree, flower, lake, hill, 
mountain, cloud and sky make a Hteral Eden. 
Subtract sin from this world and it is beautiful 
enough for a new heaven. 

One morning I went to the wharf and was sur- 
rounded by a crowd of people who bombarded 



PISA, GENOA AND MILAN. 211 

me with their wares. The narrow, high-climb- 
ing streets were filled with shops full of people, 
who were there more for business than for pleas- 
ure. I bought a souvenir of their wooden shoes 
for eighteen centimes. I took one, but the wom- 
an ran after me, lifted her dress to her ankle tops, 
showed her feet with two shoes, making me un- 
derstand I was entitled to two wooden shoes, for 
that was the number she wore. I took the other 
one, getting the shoes and view for one price. 
I hurriedly left for Menaggio by boat to take the 
train to Polezza. 

The Italian lakes seen to blend all the beauties 
of scenery that Mendelssohn's "Midsummer 
Night's Dream" does of sound. Mountains, hills, 
lawns, gardens, islands, terraces, plains, orange 
groves, white chalets, towns, cattle and natives 
are all mirrored in the clear, cold water. Who 
does not feel with Milton, "accuse not Nature, 
she hath done her part. Do thou but thine." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
VENICE— THE WHITE PHANTOMED CITY. 

"Water, water everywhere," and not a horse 
in sight, for this is the "white phantomed city 
whose untrodden streets are rivers and whose 



212 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

pavements are the shifting shadows of palaces 
and strips of sky." I stepped into a gondola, a 
canoe-shaped boat, black as a hearse, with prow 
ornamented with battle ax and steel comb, while 
balanced on the stern, a gay gondolier took a 
long bladed oar, inserted it in the curve of a 
wooden pegged oar-lock and with grace and skill 
rowed me over the crested waves. 

From the depot we sailed through narrow 
streets, and along the grand canal mid scenes of 
beauty, traffic and pleasure; all lit with hue of 
blue, green and gold ; by banks lined with pal- 
aces, columns and balconies ; near houses full of 
poetic, tragic and artistic history, by posts painted 
with the colors of the family ; opposite buildings 
that rise from the sea and seen by sunrise or 
moonlight, play a game of glory and gloom. 

Venice owes its origin to people who fled here 
in 500 A. D. to escape Attila, that "scourge of 
God" and man. The city rests on hundreds of 
islands spanned by five times as many bridges 
and was once the golden gate of commerce be- 
tween the Occident and the orient. I reached my 
hotel, wobbled off the boat, slipped on the sea- 
wet step and went to the lift to be taken to my 
room. Here, as all through Europe, if you are 
in a hurry you will walk up and when coming 



VENICE. 213 

down, do the same thing. This hotel was sit- 
uated next to Desdemona's house. 

Venice is a place of pleasure. Palaces may 
crumble, arts fade and states fall, but magnifi- 
cence, merriment and music always abide. Its 
people are musical or nothing; all hours of the 
day and night I was serenaded ; if "music be the 
food of love," the Venetians must have been hun- 
gry, for with solo and quartet, harp and guitar 
accompaniment, it was "Funicula, funicula," 
and "Marguerita, I Love You." 

St. Mark left his mark on this city as Napoleon 
did at Paris, Scott at Edinburgh and Rubens at 
Antwerp. He was their patron saint. I had vis- 
ited his residence in Alexandria where he lived, 
died and was buried, and where, according to the 
legend, his bones were covered over with lard, 
smuggled and brought here for burial. 

A modern namesake of this hero, known as 
St. Mark Twain, tells us that if these bones are 
ever carried away the Venetians believe that their 
city will vanish away. St. Mark had a 
remarkable winged lion which followed him as 
faithfully as the little lamb did Mary. Another 
column stands near, stolen from Egypt seven 
hundred years ago, surmounted by a statue of 
St. Theodore. 

The Doge's palace is called by Mr. Ruskin 



214 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

"The central building- of the world." For a 
thousand years it was the residence of the doges 
or rulers of Venice. Its arcades of marble col- 
umns are adorned with sculpture, while twisted 
shafts of Byzantine architecture, pinnacles and 
painted arches on the roof make a glorious view, 
in sun, moon or electric light. I walked through 
the colonnades which serve as a shelter from the 
sun or rain and at night form an ideal trysting 
place for lovers ; I went out from the corridor to 
the courtyard with its finely decorated marble 
walls and found the two famous bronze well 
curbs. Then I climbed the marble giant stair- 
case, viewed the lion above it and the statues of 
Mars and Neptune on either side, between which 
the doges were inaugurated. 

The state apartments are superb with their 
mosiac floors, roof and wall of masterpieces set 
in gold frames describing Venice's glory. Here 
is the largest picture in the world, seventy feet 
long painted by Tintoretti when he was nearly 
seventy years of age, and near by the biggest 
globe made. I visited the council chamber where 
the Ten exerted their fiendish despotism. Just 
outside the door is the Lion's head with the open 
mouth through which the secret denunciations 
were dropped at night for deeds without a name. 
From this building the Doge annually went out 



■ VENICE. 215 

followed by a procession to the sound of music 
and entered his gondola, sailed and said, "We 
wed thee, O sea, with this ring, emblem of our 
rightful and perpetual dominion," and cast the 
ring into the water. Venice is said to have pos- 
sessed at one time the largest armory and dock- 
yards in the world ; the first bank of deposit in 
Europe except Rome; and she printed the first 
books in Italy and sold them in St. Mark's 
square. She issued the first newspaper known to 
the world and sold it for a little coin known as 
"Gazetta," from which we get our newspaper 
word gazette. But those are the days of long 
ago. 

Back of the palace is a prison with which it is 
connected by the Bridge of Sighs. I crossed the 
bridge went into the dungeons below the water's 
edge, groped in dark cellars, breathed the foul, fet- 
id air, looked through the gloomy, grated, win- 
dows, examined the guillotine grooves and thrust 
my hands in the narrow openings, through which 
the murdered bodies were shoved out to a boat 
to be rowed out and sunk in a nameless spot. 

The palace has been compared to the brain of 
Venice ; the piazza to the heart ; and St. Mark's 
Cathedral to the soul. Mark Twain, however, 
compares the cathedral to "a warty bug taking a 
meditative walk." My guide directed me to St. 



2i6 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Mark's church saying, "Go left side to the right 
and you find it." It looks like a Christian Mos- 
que with its domes and its belfries. Whenever 
the Venetians came back from the East they 
brought some new Moorish, Arabic or Gothic art 
ideas and combined them into this structure. It 
has been beautified by booty for five hundred 
years, and its facades are of historic marble stol- 
en from Jerusalen, Constantinople, Ephesus and 
Smyrna. The interior is "grand, gloomy and pe- 
culiar" with its wallss of marble and roofs of 
precious mosaics. The receptacle of St. Mark's 
body is guarded by the statues of the twelve apos- 
tles. As usual one notices the difference between 
all this splendor and the squalor of the poor who 
constantly make claim to your prayers and alms. 
I was about to give a guide two francs to see 
some special church relic when I saw a blind 
beggar led by a little child : I let the guide go 
and gave the money to the man who needed it 
and where it would do more good. 

The famous bronze horses are stabled over the 
doorway of this cathedral. All the horses in 
town are here, and these four are good travelers. 
They have been to Rome and hitched to Nero's 
golden chariot ; Constantine sprinted them along 
the Golden Horn ; they were then driven back to 
Venice and rested for five hundred years when 



VENICE. 21^ 

Napoleon took a spin with them to the Tuileries 
in Paris, after which they were brought back here 
and have been resting- ever since. 

On Sunday afternoon I had the pleasure of go- 
ing to a Scottish church. It was in a simple 
building and had an earnest service. The min- 
ister prayed for "the queen of England, president 
of America, the king of Italy, and that England 
and America by word and deed might set a good 
example to the world." I said a hearty amen 
and included some of the Italians in my silent 
petition, for Italy more than any other country 
is a vast museum of magnificence and misery. 
The contrast is startling, between lake, moun- 
tain, painting and statuary on the one hand, and 
idle men, ignorant women, dirty boys, degraded 
girls and superstition on the other. 

St. Mark's square struck the keynote of Pa- 
ganini's "Carnival of Venice." It is square, 
flanked by state offices and attractive shops, 
where I lost good money in curios. Crowds 
promenade, listen to music, drink coffee, eat sher- 
bet, smoke cigarettes, and stare at each other in 
most approved fashion. Soldiers, saints and 
sinners elbow each other. In contrast are the 
pigeons which flock here by hundreds, a mascot 
from the early time of the Venetian's warfare at 
Candia. I fed them with wheat which I bought 



2i8 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

on the square and was photographed with them 
resting on my shoulders and encirding my head 
like Venus's doves. It was here too that I got 
a snap shot of Don Carlos, the pretender, his wife 
and a big Dane dog. I hunted them for several 
days and was at last successful. 

Venice boasts of a number of old magnificent 
churches; Santa Maria Delia Salute, closed for 
repairs by the government whose fortunes needed 
repairing; Santa Maria Dei Frari, built on twelve 
hundred piles. This church contains the body of 
Canova, the heart of Titian, a monument to Fos- 
cari, and another to Peson who sits above in state 
on a sarcophagus upheld by two great dragons ; 
two bronze skeletons carry scrolls while four Nu- 
bians with their black skins shining through 
their marble dress uphold the structure. 

One laughing morning when the zephyrs were 
blowing I took a sail to Lido, the summer resort 
and looked around the island of San Giorgio. 
Later I passed the former residences of Byron 
and Browning where the salt sea weed now 
clings to the tide-washed marble; called at the 
art gallery and saw the Assumption by Titian, 
mellowed by age which always makes even com- 
mon pictures great; visited the private palace of 
the mysterious Count Papadopoli with its won- 
derful furniture, art and library. I found a hair 



VENICE. 219 

pin in the hall which I preserved as a suggestive 
souvenir. Then on to the Scielo Racea to see 
Tintoretti's best works, the Crucifixion, marvel- 
ous carvings of figures and books, and Joshua 
and the Sun by Angelo. The Rialto invited us 
with its little shops in the center and is as busy 
as in Shylock's time. Here the laws of the re- 
public were proclaimed, merchants met and citi- 
zens congregated. 

One of the most interesting industries in Ven- 
ice is glass making. The factories are situated 
along the canal. We saw Aladdin make orna- 
ments, vases and chandeliers indescribably beau- 
tiful. ' Venetian fine arts include lace making. 
We visited the factories, saw the beautiful laces 
and faces of the girl workers who wove the web 
at the penalty of their eyesight and health. I 
wonder if Byron meant one of these beauties 
when he said, "She was to me as a fairy city of 
the heart. Of joy the sojourn and of wealth 
the mart." 

A shadow fell on this beautiful Venetian pict- 
ure in the form of a funeral procession. The 
body was brought from the church, led by 
priests, followed by jnourners, and accompanied 
by music to the dock. Then the casket was 
placed in a large gilt barge and many wonderful 
wreaths of flowers, were laid upon it. It looked 



220 TRACKS OF A TENDfiRFOOT. 

strange to see the hearse in gilt while the pleas- 
ure boats were all in black. 

The night before I left the city I climbed the 
bell-tower, three hundred and fifty feet high. 
Surely if men built Rome, the Gods built Venice. 
Above me was the blue sky, around me the soft 
breeze, below me the floating city with spire 
and sail shining in the sunset's soft splendor, 
while in the distance the rising moon came with 
her starry train to silver the rippling deep and 
marble halls. I slowly came down — entered my 
gondola — and to the musical dip of the oar I 
floated and felt, I wish all I love were here. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
GRANITE MASTERPIECES OF SWITZERLAND. 

Lucerne is a lovely little town more superbly 
situated than any city in Switzerland. At its 
feet a mirror lake of cloud, mountain and vil- 
lage; on one side the rugged form of Mount 
Pilatus where the wicked Roman after many 
years of wandering lived and then remorsefully 
committed suicide ; on the other side green sloped 
Righi where the last gleam of day lingers and 
night lights her starry lamps ; back of the town 
old walls and towers of romantic history; before 



MASTERPIECES OF SWITZERLAND. 221 

you the outline of snow covered mountains. My 
hotel was at the edge of the lake from, which I 
saw this beautiful panorama and in addition a 
promenade on the lake front where carriages 
rolled, lovers walked, and tourists sat, or visited 
curio stores filled with everything calculated to 
filch money out of their pockets. 

I had several interesting walks through old 
wooden bridges which looked like snow sheds 
over the Reuss river just before it glides into the 
lake. The rafters are decorated with hundreds 
of old pictures by Swiss masters who knew all 
the art and history of their time. From this 
bridge you may fish in the clear water beneath. 
Loafers and tourists engage in this occupation, 
I was one of them but with the apostle fished 
and "caught nothing." 

Geneva for watches and music boxes, Lucerne 
for cuckoo clocks, Alpine crystals, ivory and 
wooden carvings of all the animals in the coun- 
try, especially the wonderful Lion of Lucerne, 
thirty feet long, carved by Thorwaldsen in the 
living rock. Until we came he had been covered 
over with tarpaulin during the winter months to 
protect him from storm of ice and rain, but that 
day the canvass was removed and there in his 
lair lay the dead lion with surroundings of grass, 
trees and a quiet little pond beneath. The figure 



222 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

is a memorial of the bravery of the Swiss guards 
who gave their Hves for Louis XVI at the begin- 
ning of the French revolution. He is mortally- 
wounded by a spear whose broken handle sticks 
out of his side. Though dying he still guards 
the bourbon lily and shield with his paw. Just 
above him one reads the inscription, "To the fi- 
delity and bravery of the Swiss," while beneath 
are the names of the officers whom the mob mur- 
dered. 

A few feet to the left is the famous Glacier 
garden where you pay your fee and see the spot 
where there are ancient glacier tracks with round 
holes in the rock filled with cannon ball shaped 
stones made by the waters as they swirled and 
moved. 

The Hofkirche is to Lucerne what St. Peter's 
is to Rome, an old two-spired church not known 
for its size, columns or art, but for its wonder- 
ful organ. We made up a party of twelve, gave 
a franc apiece and went there one evening. The 
church was dark as a vault and damp as a cellar. 
I covered my feet with a visitor's robe, some one 
neld my hand and I wore my clerical cap pur- 
chased at Florence. But the music! Now a 
hallelujah avalanche of sound and then an an- 
gel's serenade of melody. The young Swiss or- 
ganist showed his mastery of the instrument 



MASTERPIECES OF SWITZERLAND. 223 

and then proceeded to make an organ of our 
souls and spines, playing every note from pedal 
bass to ghostly treble. He concluded with a de- 
scription of an Alpine storm, a tone picture of 
his country; a summer day with its mountains, 
valleys, fields, herds, flutes and song, then cloud, 
silence, lightning, thunder, wind and torrents of 
rain. It was the real thing. I forgot everything 
in the storm. Then I remembered I had left my 
mackintosh and umbrella at the hotel and was 
sure I would be drenched before I got back. 
Suddenly the storm sobbed itself to sleep ; it grew 
light and I heard the voice of the choir praising 
God for his deliverance. 

According to art canons such music is not the 
highest, but I am sure never this side of heaven 
will I hear such a "lost chord divine" and its 
grand "amen." 

There are bigger but not more beautiful lakes 
than Lucerne, twenty-three miles in length with 
a framed setting of gold by day and silver by 
night. We sailed along looking at villages, val- 
leys and gardens mirrored in the blue depths be- 
neath. Far above and away were distant crags 
and pines looking, longingly and lovingly 
towards the water they could not reach, 
but the lake seemed to sympathize with 
them and held them mirrored in her heart. 



224 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Switzerland boasts of some of the su- 
blimest mountain and water scenery in the 
world; trackless precipices, savage gorges, foam 
fretted rocks, falls like Bridal Veil of Yosemite, 
and rapid torrents crossed by devil's bridges 
which make your hair stand on end like porcu- 
pine's quills. One needs his soul and body in- 
sured in such a country and so Tell's Chapel is 
welcome. It is said to be built on the spot where 
he leaped ashore from Gessler. I know the ex- 
istence of this hero has been questioned as has 
been that of Hector and Achilles, though Ar- 
nold says this chapel was built by Tell's native 
canton and dedicated to his memory in the pres- 
ence of more than a hundred of his relatives and 
friends. Doubting Thomases have annihilated 
Moses, Shakespere and Tell, and will soon de- 
prive us of George Washington and Dr. Mary 
Walker if we permit them. It's time they put 
up their little boxes of matches and bottles of 
acid and allow us to enjoy a few things, them- 
selves excluded. History tells us Tell was a real 
personage and poetry, painting and sculpture 
have said the same thing. The Swiss look at 
each mountain as an "altar breathing his honor," 
from the time of the cradle, chasing of the cham- 
ois, rowing of rippHng lakes, shooting of the ap- 



MASTERPIECES OF SWITZERLAND. 225 

pie from his son's head until he ended a noble 
life by dying to save one who was drowning. 

I had the mountain fever and wanted to climb. 
I had my glasses fixed, my shoes soled with a 
section of hose pipe and ironed with a keg of 
steel nails. Thus regally attired I lacked but 
one thing — an Alpine stock, the tourist's magic 
wand and sceptre. They are of all styles, sizes 
and prices. They become more valuable as you 
have the names of the places, which you have 
visited or wanted to, or couldn't, or didn't, 
burned on them. This stick is the leading object 
of interest when you return to your hotel. When 
you get home, you may have a whole cord wood 
of selected canes, but you value your Alpine stock 
as your most cherished possession. 

On to Righi ! was the cry, so we took the boat 
and sailed to Waggis, a little village at the foot 
of the mountain. Righi looms overhead six 
thousand feet above sea level. A big climb, but 
a glorious view of three hundred miles round 
about when you are on top. Hand and foot 
mountain climbing have given away to car and 
cog, and where the chamois lived you go by rail 
as easily as to the top of a barn by a ladder. I 
know it is a sham and a sacrilege to a mountain 
climber, but from my chmbs on Pike's Peak and 
elsewhere I know it's a pleasure to a pleasure 



226 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

seeker. All aboard and on and on we climb four 
thousand five hundred feet above the lake be- 
neath. By my side sat a man as blind as Bar- 
timeus of Jericho, dead to all the beautiful 
scenery of mountain, valley, village and lake. 
The air was frosty but a young bridal couple 
in front of me by tender endearment managed 
to keep the whole party warm. 

Above "snowy summits old in story" we 
reached the hotel and with an appetite like the 
famine in Ireland. The table was spread, an 
American flag was hung over our heads, I re- 
sponded to the toast "America," which my 
friends drank in Munich beer, then I played 
Strauss for the party to warm their feet by, made 
friends with the big St. Bernard dogs, looked for 
wild flowers, mosses, red roses, forget-me-nots 
and funny, fuzzy edelweiss and went out and 
snowballed with the whitest snow you ever saw. 
We were tired enough to go to bed early. 

The call of the horn as musical as that of a 
Duluth fog horn woke the party early in the 
morning. Half dressed, wrapped up in bad 
clothes, tied with towels to keep from taking cold, 
grumbling and joking we climbed to see the 
sunrise, something some of the Virginian friends 
of the party had never seen before. But the 
scene was worth all the climb cost, when the 



MASTERPIECES OF SWITZERLAND. 227 

gray turned to gold, the stars blinked themselves 
to sleep, the sun smiled upon the Jungfrau and 
her white-robed sisters, glaciers gleamed like 
frozen ocean waves, the sapphire lake sparkled 
in its granite setting and the world awoke with 
her power and beauty. We saw the site of 
Goldau, and if it is a grave Mt. Righi is its 
monument. As Pompeii was buried with fiery 
ashes, so this city was destroyed by rock, snow, 
ice, mud and gravel, by the mad Titan of nature ; 
or shall I say the rocks which now cover the place 
were so many mile stones to these Swiss so- 
journers on their way to eternity? 

Swiss air is a tonic and its scenery a new 
lease on life. When a man grows weary and 
blase of city life let him come here and kneel on 
these Olympian altars. It has been finely said 
"Switzerland is a sublime cathedral of moun- 
tains whose columns are majestic trees ; 
stained glass, autumnal foliage ; anthems, the 
song of birds ; requiems, the moaning of pines ; 
grand roof, the stupendous arch of the unmeas- 
ured sky, beneath which the snow-clad mountains 
rise like jeweled altars lighted at night as if with 
lofty tapers by the glittering stars." But Mt. 
Righi like some other mountains had been curs- 
ing instead of blessing, Gerizim instead of Ebal, 
had it not been for my scholarly, genial courier, 



228 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. | 

C. F Beyers, who was our "sesame" all through 
Africa, Asia and the continent. A courier makes 
hard work easy ; to have one is to have heaven, 
to be without one is generally the other thing. 
Give him the key and he will protect your bag- 
gage against the design of the custom officer; 
without loss of patience, time or anything else; 
your hotel is selected and you find your bath, 
board and bed ; early next morning carriages and 
guides are at your door for drives ; at night the 
theater is selected and the seats purchased ; when 
you are about to leave you escape the foreign 
frantic crowd. 

Switzerland has been described as "a large 
humpy, solid rock, with a thin skin of grass cov- 
ered over it." I might add there are nine months 
of winter when Medusa stiffens nature into ice 
and shrouds with snow, but there are "others" 
in which something may be found. Valleys smile 
up in the savage face of the mountains, green 
hills, herds of goats and sheep, sounds of tink- 
ling bells, jodel warblings, rush of water falls, 
curious cottages nestling on rocky heights and 
with stones on top to keep them from being 
blown over, rocky terraces with giant fir trees, 
flowers of many colors, tufts of grass and moss 
and delicate ferns, and music of mountain 
streams with -lace of foam tell another story. 



MASTERPIECES OF SWITZERLAND. 229 

Here the pine is monarch on a throne six thou- 
sand feet above the sea level; above him the 
bright Alpine sun tinging with red the edge of 
snow and glacier and above this the mountain 
grasses. These pine trees sing the summer's 
requiem and offer security for man and herd. 
They draw the dew and rain, which they slowly 
distribute; protect villages from storm and ava- 
lanche; furnish fuel for fire; offer material for 
the toys of animals, paper cutters and clocks 
which are sent over the world ; or as timber are 
floated as rafts to Holland for masts or spars. 
Add to this the product of green grass, yellow 
butter, and the best cheese. 

The villages are small and so situated as to 
be protected from avalanche and storm. There 
are no big yards for the herds, and the farms 
use every inch that can be spared. The natives 
seem like one big family for society and protec- 
tion from the dreary space and mountain soli- 
tude. They eat meat very seldom, live on cheese 
and goat's milk and do a good day's labor. 
Some of the houses are of red-brown wood, 
gables to the roads, eaves far stretching, small 
windows with little panes, white curtains, boxes 
of flowers on the sill, while across the front is 
carved a flower, or fruit, or scripture text. Other 
houses are small, low, black, damp, unpainted 



230 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

and with dirt floors. The first story is occupied 
by cows and goats. No chimneys, no windows 
except wooden shutters opened now and then to 
let out the smoke. I met several owners clad in 
rough home-spun, surrounded by the rudest of 
furniture. 

The Swiss house was his castle and he was 
content. Three times a day he ate porridge with 
an iron spoon from the cheapest earthen bowl 
and was very happy. I think his conscience was 
quiet and at peace with his little world and be- 
yond this all was vacancy. The farm tools were 
few, simple and self made ; long handled spades 
of wood to dig the potatoes, clumsy sticks and 
rakes to work in the hay, and nets of rope in 
which barefooted men and women carried the hay 
to an old log cabin. 

I saw some of the originals of Markham's 
"Man with the Hoe," and old wrinkled women 
bent beneath the weight of years, loaves of black 
bread, or flat tubs of goat's milk. Ignorance is 
bliss with them. Their struggle with nature for 
security and support has made them as loyal to 
their land as the Hollanders and Venetians are 
to theirs. They have little time or money for 
dissipation. Crime is infrequent, the stone steps 
of the church are furrowed with footprints show- 
ing where- for hundreds of years the Jacobs have 



MASTERPIECES OF SWITZERLAND. 231 

climbed to heaven. The spirit of Arnold Von 
Winkelried at Sempach is true of the Swiss 
whether they are after an enemy or seeking to 
provide for their herds or homes, or to catch the 
eagle or chamois. Chamois hunting is the dan- 
gerous delight of the Swiss. It is the game that 
thrills the Swiss with the feeling of a Rocky 
mountain hunter and trapper ; for this he endures 
fatigue and hunger, leaves friend and family and 
risks life and limb. 

In contrast to this bravery is Swiss supersti- 
tion ; I learned they are not so much afraid of the 
great things as of little sprites, fairies and pig- 
mies, who are the guardian angels of the fish 
and chamois, and are believed to control the 
winds, waters and avalanches. They come upon 
one as the dwarfs did upon Rip Van Winkle 
when he was going up the mountain. I didn't 
hunt for chamois but for these dwarfs, who are 
said to be covered with jaunty caps from under 
which their long hair reached the ground, and 
to wear green coats and a long gray beard. 
Perhaps they exist but I failed to see them. I 
find suggestions here of theYellowstone,'Colorado 
and Yosemite canyons. The St. Bernard pass 
is not as grand as the St. Gotthard, but is known 
for its hospices which do for travelers here what 
the monasteries do for pilgrims in Palestine. The 



232 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

buildings are black with storm and age, but the 
faces of the brothers are bright with the greatest 
of graces, which is charity. I am sure they will 
hear the divine "inasmuch as ye did it unto 
Me," for the many whom they have befriended. 

The St. Gotthard pass is like the McGregor's 
"The grandest of them all." Napoleon's law 
built the Simplon pass, but the love of the Swiss 
built the Gotthard with its bridges, tunnels, gal- 
laries and buttresses which are mementoes of the 
sacrifice of the cantons through which it passed. 
Hurried for time, I could not drive over the 
Axenstrasse, cut out of the solid rock with its 
fine roads and galleries of grand views, so I went 
by rail. Our engine crawled like a caterpillar 
among the clouds, around hills, over bridges and 
viaducts, through a tunnel nine and one-half 
miles long, which together with fifty-five 
others, make twenty-five miles cut inch 
by inch through solid granite. It was 
a mathematical miracle to me. I asked 
myself how they did it and got as much 
satisfaction as from the sphinx, yet it was done 
and so accurately planned that the Italian and 
Swiss workmen met at a calculated point from 
opposite ends, six thousand feet below the sum- 
mit. If I had planned it one end would have 



MASTERPIECES OF SWITZERLAND. 233 

been in Norway and the other toward Spain, or 
some other point of the compass. 

No, I didn't climb Mt. Blanc or write a poem 
on it. I left that for Balmat and Coleridge, who 
have done it to the ''queen's taste," It's easier to 
climb by proxy and make the ascent by telescope. 
I had an Alaskan experience on the Muir glacier, 
and one was enough. This tying yourself to- 
gether with ropes, using your Alpine stock as a 
balancing pole, cutting steps with an axe, climb- 
ing up or being lowered with a rope in an atmos- 
phere of snow and cold, with flesh and hair 
creeping all the time, — no, I beg to be excused. 

Goethe said, "The book of nature is after all 
the only one which has on every page important 
meanings." This page of Swiss nature is a les- 
son which grows in grandeur the more I re- 
count it. Switzerland is a gallery where God 
has carved some of his greatest granite master- 
pieces ; it is an auditorium where he has played 
some of his most majestic music in eternal foun- 
tains fed by glaciers, whispering now with low 
voice like Cordelia, or raving or roaring like 
Lear. Walter Scott said, "If I could not see 
my own heather covered hills at least once in a 
year, I believe I should die." This must explain 
the homesick yearning which the Swiss have in 
America as they settle on our rugged hillsides, 



234 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

and which fills the heart of the clerical tourist 
who wishes his salary was big enough to allow 
him to go there every year. 



CHAPTER XX. 
FAMED CITIES OF GERMANY. 

We left Switzerland and Austria, with their 
solemn pines, thrifty country, polite officials at 
the stations, crosses and wayside shrines, poor 
women working in the fields and men gathering 
peat rakings for charcoal burnings; took the 
train for Romanshorn, thence by boat over fair 
Lake Constance, to Lindau, with its fine harbor, 
on to Kempton, with its manufactures, and to 
Kaiferling and Munich. 

My hotel was the Bayerischerhof, large and 
finely furnished, with a lounging room in which 
there was a bed that looked like an old sailing 
vessel. After a bill of fare, which caused one 
to shed tears of gratitude, we drove to the statue 
of Bavaria, one hundred and seventy feet high, 
and to the Temple of Fame, in which a few 
niches are left for geniuses to come after us ; 
then to the old Pinakothek, which, like the Vati- 
can, contains many pictures by the old masters; 
later to the New Pinakothek, with works from 



FAMED CITIES OF GERMANY. 23s 

modern artists and Kaulbach's famous frescoes. 
Last of all to the Glyptothek, with galleries of 
statuary, Egyptian and Greek and art curios sec- 
ond only to Dresden and Berlin. The bronze 
foundry contains the models of all the great stat- 
ues of the world, including our own Washington, 
Lincoln and the bronze doors of the capitol. One 
of the show places is the great slaughter house, a 
credit to any in this country, covering nearly 
nine hundred acres and with some of the finest 
looking cattle I ever saw outside of a fair ground. 
A short drive brought us to the royal stables, 
with their fine horses and carriages. This city 
boasts some fine statues of Maximilian, Louis 
L, and an obelisk to the memory of the thirty 
thousand Bavarians who died in Napoleon's Mos- 
cow expedition. A number of fine parks and pub- 
lic buildings, and manv opportunities for shop- 
ping and sights are plainly remembered, especially 
some questionable pictures and art cards, which 
the proprietors had no modest fears from exhib- 
iting in their windows. After passing through 
the Victory Gate, which resembles the Constan- 
tine Arch in Rome, I met Mr. Heinemann, the 
artist, who took me to his private gallery of pic- 
tures of the modern school and entertained me 
with talk of artists and their work. 

Good Friday was observed there with solem- 



, 236 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

nity, theaters and concert halls being closed, but 
on Saturday I met a German in the rotunda of 
the hotel, who invited me to go with him, saying 
I could have a good time, drink my ten glasses 
of beer, listen to the "Stars and Stripes," come 
home, smoke and sleep well. I let him go his 
own gait. Later I went to the big Hofbrauhaus, 
where I found accommodation for five thousand 
people who might care to worship the God Gam- 
brinus. What a sight ! Old and young, rich and 
poor, families and friends, sweethearts and lov- 
ers, and all drinking beer, beer, pure, cold, sweet 
and delicious, and varying the program with oc- 
casional pretzels, cheese, sandwiches, music, cards 
and cigars. I came and saw and was not con- 
quered, but a stein near me bore this inscription : 
"The man who never sat down with a stein of 
Muncher in his hand doesn't know how much 
better God had been to the Bavarians than to the 
rest of the world." 

Too much beer must have led a tired Teuton 
to say "Der ghost is retty but der meat is weak." 

Boarding a train where engineer, fireman and 
officials were armed with steins of beer, we sped 
by Inglestadt's battle field, where Adolphus was 
checked by Pappenheim, and reached Neuren- 
berg a mediaeval city with its feudal walls, moats, 
towers, narrow and crooked streets. There is a 



FAMED CITIES OF GERMANY. 237 

proverb, "Nurenberg's hand goes through every 
land," and Longfellow has sung the history of 
the village in a poem childish hearts never for- 
get. We came here at night. After an early 
breakfast of sausage, black bread and coffee, we 
drove to the church of St. Laurence, formerly 
Roman Catholic, now Protestant, the windows, 
pulpit and crosses being sacredly preserved. It 
contains Krafift's fifty-five foot gothic spire of 
saints in stone, standing by the altar, and has 
been compared to a "foamy sheaf of fountain ris- 
ing through the painted air." Another church 
is St. Sebold's with Visscher's bronze shrine, fit 
to be compared with the work of Ghiberti, while 
the Church of Our Lady possesses some fine 
stained glass windows and pictures by Wohlge- 
muth. 

Here and there one finds parks in imitation 
of those in England; old gates and walls of the 
old town still standing; modern buildings 
planned after models two thousand years old ; 
columns erected in a square to commemorate the 
defeat of the Protestants near Prague in the 
Thirty Years' War; Town House with frescoes 
by Durer, called the Evangelist of Art ; houses of 
Sachs, Durer and Palm, the patriotic book-seller 
whom Napoleon ordered shot; statues of Mel- 
ancthon and other celebrities ; fountains known 



238 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. ' 

as the Goose, Manikin, Pyramid with statues, and 
others rich with sculpture standing in the old 
mart ; cemetery of noted men, and Krafift's seven 
pillars with Passion in stone relief. 

Of great interest is the castle, the royal pic- 
tures, the elm tree, seven hundred years old, and 
the instruments of torture that taxed the in- 
genuity of Satan to invent; thumb-screws, axes, 
racks, pinchers, stretchers and the Virgin, whose 
spiked embrace crushed out many a life. I felt 
the edge of the sword that had cut ofif eight hun- 
dred heads ,and was good for as many more. 
This torture chamber in Conrad's castle gives one 
a horrible nightmare that made Tarn O'Shanter's 
a pleasure in comparison. The city prides itself 
in being the first to side with the Reformation 
and accept Protestantism. 

Our party will pleasantly remember the old 
market place in the early morning; the peasants 
in their odd costumes, selling eggs, flowers and 
fruit, and the women and boys who were hitched 
up with dogs to the queer carts. A visit to Ru- 
bens' house, with its pictures, and to Hans 
Sach's, where he and Rubens and the boys 
"drank her down," were of interest. Here were 
the old pewter cups, filled and emptied so many 
times. I handled them and while thinking of 
the fingers now dust which had held them, re- 



FAMED CITIES OF GERMANY. 239 

membered that life was "more than meat and the 
body than raiment." Of this town of toil and 
traffic, of art and song, with its pointed gables 
and flying rooks Longfellow sings : "Not thy 
councils, not thy kaisers, win for thee the world's 
regard, but thy painter, Albrecht Durer, and 
Hans Sachs, thy cobbler bard." 

Dresden is called the "German Florence," but 
I found it more religious than the Italian city. 
It has a Lutheran population, but Catholics and 
Protestants vied with each other in a gorgeous 
Easter celebration. The Frauein is shaped like 
the Parthenon, the organ was high, the loft to- 
wards the ceiling, and choir and crowd and con- 
gregation joined in praises. I also attended the 
Hof Kirche, where there was a splendid orches- 
tra, organ and choir. In the afternoon we 
walked along the Elbe, which is a fashionable 
promenade. The river was way over the rail- 
road tracks, but there were two fine bridges con- 
necting the old and new town, over which we 
rode. Gardens, parks, barracks and crowds 
formed an interesting spectacle. 

On ^-he principle of "the better the day the 
better the deed," some of our party went to the 
Konig's theater to hear Weber's Oberon. It is 
a fine building and everything which the great- 
est lover of music could desire. The city is 



240 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

noted as an artistic, scientific and literary center, 
seen in her collections of pictures, specimens and 
manuscripts in buildings dedicated to their ex- 
hibition. The inhabitant is very versatile and 
will make beer for your stomach, flowers for 
your hat and any kind of wind instrument for 
your mouth. I found it O. K. or as the Ger- 
man would say, "J^^^ wohl, wunderschon." The 
royal palace has a tower and a chapel, contain- 
ing many fine pictures. The Bruhl palace and 
terrace were imposing with their steps and Schil- 
ling's statues of Morning, Evening, Day and 
Night. The Japanese palace has a fine collection 
of classics^ coins and ceramics. The Grosser 
Garten is a kind of pleasure resort. The his- 
torical museum has illustrations of past peoples 
and customs. The Green Vault has eight rooms 
full of treasures; gold, silver, ivory and pearl, 
and a large green brilliant representing the 
dwarf of Charles II., of Spain. I noticed a his- 
torical plate of silver, four feet by four inches 
square, with one hundred and thirty-two figures, 
but I was hungry enough to prefer a square meal 
with a cup of black coffee to wash it down. The 
museum contains some of the world's leading 
master pieces of art. I stood entranced by Ra- 
phael's beautiful Madonna di San Sisto ; Correg- 
gio's "Holy Night" was a benediction; Rem- 



FAMED CITIES OF GERMANY. 241 

brandt's portrait of himself and his wife sitting 
on his knee, bade us welcome, while engravings, 
drawings and casts suggested wealth of skill and 
beauty. 

I visited the race track, for Paul himself went 
to the stadium and uses athletic figures in his 
writings. The band played Sousa's Cadet 
march and the horses were booked for a run- 
ning and hurdle race. I perceived a divided 
duty between the track and the king and some 
American girls, who were impudent enough to 
take aim at him, with their kodak. My guide 
wanted to know if I would bet. I told him no 
and vainly tried to prove to him the difference 
between a man who has the face of a sport and 
the instincts of a minister and the one who has 
the face of a minister and the instincts of a sport. 
It was an orderly crowd. I saw no signs of 
gambling and the hurdle race was won by Vir- 
ginia Rose, one of my southern lady friends, 
"bred in old Kentucky." There are some things 
in the land where "the sun shines bright" which 
are hard to beat and one of them is a thorough- 
bred horse. 

They say "Clothes make the man." I sup- 
pose they mean the man makes clothes, just as 
Wordsworth, when he said, "The child 
is father of the man," meant the man was 



242 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

the father of the child. Some of my friends 
wanted some new clothes, tuxedoes, which could 
be made to order for $15, if they would only pre- 
tend they were g-overnment officials. They were 
measured and paid the price of lying by looking 
like orphans in a strange land. Europe has 
the stock but hasn't the style. I would rather 
pay more in America and have a better fit. 

"On to Berlin" was our cry. The scenery to- 
wards the city was quite tame, only enlivened by 
big windmills. Our hotel had five hundred rooms 
and like the colored race, all "look alike to me." 
At my door I was garroted by an official for my 
name. He slipped on the word Gulian and fell 
down on my occupation as minister, of which he 
had serious doubts. But there was a fine dinner 
at which the band, recognizing our nationality, 
gave us the "Belle of New York" and "The Stars 
and Stripes." Next door I found a pleasure 
hall with a variety show, at which at least three 
thousand people were present. The bill of fare 
was vocal and instrumental music, a wrestling 
match and kinetoscopic pictures of the British 
and Boer war, at the sight of which the crowd 
hissed Kitchener and applauded Kruger. My 
friend and I got down from the table on which 
we had stood and made it a stand for refresh- 
ments. 



FAMED CITIES OF GERMANY. 243 

The Spree river, on which the town is situated, 
makes it very easy to go on one here, at any 
rate. I started out of the hotel the next morn- 
ing by giving a fountain pen to a German girl, 
who thought it a cHnical thermometer, and I 
concluded at night by giving a mark for a rose- 
bud, which proved me an easy one for assaults 
on my purse. The city used to be walled and 
had more than a dozen gates. The Brandenberg 
gate remains with its Grecian architecture; the 
central arch is reserved for royalty and those on 
either side for common people. Over our head 
stood the car of victory, which Napoleon took to 
Paris and the Germans brought back in pro- 
cession. 

The city boasts splendid public buildings of 
all kinds, and some few architecturally beautiful 
bridges. The finest street is Unter den Linden, 
not as beautiful as Champs Elysee for trees, but 
more so for public statues and palaces. It was 
here I heard the cry, saw the crowd, and met 
Emperor William, whom the loyal inhabitants 
wildly run and rave after. Berlin is the center 
of mihtary art; its god is Mars; its armory is 
decorated with military signs and statues, and 
the guardhouse of the royal palace has soldiers 
ready to quell a riot at a moment's notice, or to 
line up and salute some distinguished personage. 



244 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

They failed to recognize us. The hack system 
is good. No crowd of drivers to tear you to 
pieces, but a gentlemanly invitation to ride at 
the rate of fifteen cents a quarter of an hour with 
a clock before you to indicate the time and num- 
ber of miles traveled. We went shopping for 
shirts and handkerchiefs, and by a mistaken or- 
der got everything in the store but a set of bed 
and table linen. 

We attended the Royal Theater and were there 
just in time to get our seats before the first note 
was struck. This American idea of coming in 
at all hours of the night and disturbing the lead- 
er and the audience is not permitted. This roy- 
al opera house, built by Frederick the Great, is 
a kind of German home, for the Germans live on 
music. They come here not so much to show 
off their good clothes as to hear good music. 
The concert begins at 6:30 or 7 o'clock and is 
over by 10, so that you are not worn out for the 
next day's work. You pay anywhere from 15 to 
30 cents, keep quiet until the end of the selection, 
and then have an intermission for applause, beer 
and pretzels, if you wish. 

The Germans are noted for beer and music. 
It has been estimated that two million glasses of 
beer are drunk daily in Berlin, more than one for 
every man, woman and child in the city — ^yet 



FAMED CITIES OF GERMANY. 245 

here, as elsewhere, I saw no drunkenness. The 
beer must be better, the climate healthier, or the 
people stronger than they are in America. I 
took nothing but mineral water, yet, unless my 
eyes deceived me, the night morals of Berlin are 
as bold and bad as those of Paris. Weary, I 
tried to get in room 63, instead of 47. Startled 
surprise was indicated by some soprano notes, 
but I quickly returned the key on the peg, and 
so avoided Mr. Pickwick's famous experience, or 
something worse. 

Of course I saw the royal museum, with its 
fine park and statues, and admired the basin of 
polished granite sixty-six feet in circumference. I 
visited the Thiergarten, its walks and menagerie, 
listened to its music and enjoyed the beautiful 
statue of Louise upon the island which bears 
her name. Then to Charlottenberg, with its 
tombs of royalty, marble couches, and the col- 
ored light falling from the upper windows with 
a beauty suggesting the resurrection morn. The 
palace of Babelsberg is of interest because occu- 
pied by old King William in summer time. 

But most historic of all is Potsdam, the Ger- 
man Versailles. In the royal palace here Fred- 
erick received his ambassadors. I went into the 
secret cabinet and saw the table which descended 
through the floor to the kitchen beneath, so 



246 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

avoiding the servants' ears and eyes, which are 
so often annoying. The king's social habits were 
peculiar. His suppers were generally stag par- 
ties. He had few women friends, except his sis- 
ter, who came to his court. He was a great 
dog fancier, and of his favorites he literally said, 
"Love me, love my dog." He allowed them the 
greatest freedom, even to destroying the cur- 
tains and tapestry, saying, even then, that they 
were "less expensive than women." An historic 
tree is the Tree of Petitions, on which the peo- 
ple hung their complaints, and concerning one 
of which Frederick said: "All religions must be 
tolerated, but none must m.ake unjust encroach- 
ments upon others. In this country every man 
must get to heaven in his own way," He was 
surely sensible and scriptural, and it will be a 
good day when the priest and laity of all com- 
munions come to this conclusion. 

Sans Souci was the favorite residence of this 
Frederick the Great. I climbed the terraced 
stairs, looked at and listened to the fountains 
which sang a lullaby for Frederick when he lay 
down his sword for pen, music and book. I en- 
tered the concert room and reverently placed my 
hands upon the old piano which Bach had played 
so many times. Here, too, Voltaire, the witty 
and wicked, flattered Frederick into a kind of 



FAMED CITIES OF GERMANY. 247 

friendship, but it was only of short duration, the 
time coming when he said, "The king sends me 
his soiled linen to wash." Then as now true 
friendship between man or woman requires heart 
as well as brain. Near by is the old historic mill 
that the king failed to get from, the poor peasant 
who later generously allowed him to have it. I 
too, failed to get it because of an imperfect film. 
The Orangery, built in the Italian style, is full 
of art. We were too early to enter the king's 
new palace and I disgusted the guard and sol- 
diers by saying, "Es macht nichts aus." 

I wish, though, I might have seen King Wil- 
liam here and told him I was sorry he was so 
friendly to the Sultan and congratulated him, 
"that his precious life had been spared from the 
earthquake shock at Constantinople." Howev- 
er, Germany may have received some valuable 
railroad concessions in Asia Minor to warrant 
such a congratulation. 

Pope was no fool when he spoke in his "Dun- 
ciad" of "The right divine of kings to govern 
wrong." 



248 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

CHAPTER XXI. 
LEIPZIG, FRANKFORT, THE RHINE. 

Leipzig is the town that gives you the glad 
hand of "wine, women and song." A fine city 
which might be called Three Rivers from the 
streams in and around it. Its buildings are 
large and stately; it has fine statues of Schiller 
and Mendelssohn; the Pauliner and Thomas 
Kirches invite you to pray; the museum offers 
paintings, casts, sculptures, engravings and 
drawings manifold; the library with its ancient 
volumes and manuscripts is a paradise for stu- 
dents to revel in ; while there are books in stores 
for worms and book worms. Leipzig stands for 
music; its Gewandhaus is a fine building, far- 
famed for its annual concerts. The royal con- 
servatory was founded in 1843 by Mendelssohn 
and the city boasts many vocal and orchestral 
societies. 

There are three great annual fairs which draw 
crowds of buyers to the great fur and wool mar- 
ket. These gatherings date from the fifteenth 
century. One of the most interesting places is 
Auerbach's Kellar, dating from 1438, the scene 
of Dr. Faustus. Here Goethe received inspira- 
tion for his immortal tragedy. They show you 



LEIPZIG, FRANKFORT, THE RHINE. 249 

his room, with its curios and pictures on the wall, 
of sixteenth century illustration, portraying the 
legend on which the play is founded. The thing 
to do is to sit at one of the tables and drink a 
kind of wine and dream of Mephistopheles. I 
met a man there who had drunk too much and 
was acting like his Satanic majesty. The Schiller 
Strasse is a fine street, but the town's leading 
impression is a musical one. No matter what 
your nationality you may find here the universal 
language of music; may be "lapped in soft 
Lydian airs" unless you are spoiled and "fit for 
treasons." Was Shakespeare right when he 
said, "Preposterous ass who does not know music 
was ordained to refresh the mind of man, after 
his studies or his usual pain?" 

Frankfort is situated on the Oder river, but I 
detected several other sausage smells like linked 
sweetness long drawn out, which the geography 
of the town does not enumerate. The city has 
outgrown its old walls, but bridges the river to 
a Damm suburb. It is known in history for the 
siege of Charles IV.; papal excommunication, 
and capture by Gustavus Adolphus in 1631. 
There is a fine boulevard around the old walls; 
an equestrian statue of Wilhelm I. and of Guten- 
burg, the alleged inventor of printing. The 
town has a number of historic houses; private 



250 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

ones of Martin Luther, Goethe and Rothschild ; 
the pubHc Rathhaus, with a sign of the Hanseatic 
league on the southern gable. It boasts a palm 
garden from which Milwaukee's Schlitz may 
have taken a cue; a fine theater and a great rail- 
road depot which would do credit to St. Louis. 
There are three annual fairs. St. Mary's Prot- 
estant church and dome are worth a visit and 
study. 

One of the most beautiful things here or any- 
where is the statue of Ariadne, owned by a rich 
citizen and exhibited in his private gallery. We 
were loath to leave the town, but found a com- 
pensation on the train in the company of a lady 
and gentlemen who knew how to talk English. 
It was a relief from some people in the hotel who 
had embarrassed me so that I had stuck my pen 
in the mucilage bottle and for a time could pro- 
ceed no further. They finally left me, when an- 
other native asked: "Say, you live in Chicago, 
America; you know Mr. Gates?" 

Wiesbaden is a kind of Manitou; very fash- 
ionable and frequented by those who need wa- 
ter, hot or cold. Pliny mentions the town and 
its baths were known to the Romans as a cure 
for many ills. The water contains a Httle salt, 
carbonic acid and a hundred and fifty-six de- 
grees of heat, which may be reduced to ninety- 



LEIPZIG FRANKFORT, THE RHINE. 251 

five, more or less, as you please. The springs 
are "hot stuff," next to the Yellowstone Park 
the hottest water I ever touched or tasted. You 
may bathe or soak in it and it will sluice out of 
you all the diseases known, or you may drink it, 
served from a yellow hot caldron, by a pretty 
girl in a thin glass (this sentence is constructed 
on the most improved German plan). The place 
used to be a kind of Monte Carlo, but the gov- 
ernment suppressed public gambling and it 
seems to be quite proper now. There are 
churches for all creeds and a Greek one with 
about five steeples; a museum, a theater, a pic- 
ture gallery, a palace, a cursall and park. The 
leading spring at this German Saratoga is the 
Kochbrunnen, of which I drank freely. It was 
near my hotel, a large building with large rooms 
and two little candles in mine to make darkness 
all the greater, as my shins could testify. 

A short ride by rail brought us to Biberich, 
where we found the steamer Frauenlob waiting 
to sail us down the Rhine. The boat was well 
named, for on board there was a loving young 
married couple. She was pretty, and, like other 
grooms, he was awkward, with an affection he 
could not conceal. Every now and then he drew 
a big handkerchief from his pants front pocket, 
but it was not capacious enough to hide the 



252 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

way he looked or the words he uttered. It was 
a beautiful day, and we were in fine spirits. The 
river is not so beautiful as our Hudson, Missis- 
sippi or Columbia, in places, but in history and 
legend it outrivals them all. 

From the earliest of times this river has been 
one of the chief waterways of Europe. Eight 
hundred miles long, navigable for six hundred 
and draining a territory of more than seventy- 
five thousand square miles. It is a link between 
the Alpine tops of Switzerland and the mud 
banks of Holland; it issues from a mountain 
stream of snow and ice, leaves its muddy burden 
at Lake Constance, leaps eighty feet over the falls 
at Schaffhausen, runs by the Black Forest at 
Lauterburg, narrows at Bingen and flattens out 
above Cologne as the Hudson does above Pough- 
keepsie. My friend and I were "ein herz" and 
"ein sinn" as we sang "Die Wacht am Rhine" 
and "Der Vaterland." A German passenger 
united with us in a rich voice, but when we 
switched off on "Le Marsellaise" he scowled like 
thunder and muttered "Ach, Gott." But we were 
fair, for this river has been politically significant 
since four centuries before Christ ,and has made 
history, Romanic and Franco-Germanic, from 
Julius Caesar to Bismarck. 

Today Father Rhine stirs a German's patriotic 



LEIPZIG, FRANKFORT, THE RHINE. 253 

blood and symbolizes his land as America and 
the eagle do ours. Some of the many things of 
interest which I saw were the Johannisberg vine- 
yards, with their stone terraces and soil-filled 
hanging gardens of luscious grapes, whence 
comes the famous wine; castles in good 
state of preservation or in ruins, filled with mem- 
ories of murder which the mantling ivy could not 
wholly conceal; Rheinfels, a synonym of rob- 
bery; Rheinstein, the beautiful summer residence 
of the German emperor; the Mouse Tower of 
Bishop Hatto, whom Southey immortalized in 
his poem. 

Bingen made "fair" in respect to the German 
soldier who "lay dying at Algiers;" Niederwald 
on the wooden hill opposite, with its national 
statue in honor of victory over France, with his- 
toric figures and its inspiring "Wacht;" Bachar- 
ach with St. Werner's Chapel in memory of the 
boy who was murdered by the Jews and whose 
body, flung in the river, floated up the stream; 
Toll House, in the middle of the stream on a 
rocky foundation, to collect boat fares, with a 
dungeon beneath and other light refreshments if 
you didn't "fork over;" St. Goar village, whose 
patron boatman forcibly baptized a man and 
then drowned him to send him straight to heav- 
en before he could fall from grace, and who, 



254 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

when remonstrated with for his unprofessional 
zeal, proved his divine authority by hanging his 
hat on a sunbeam; Lorelei cliffs, four hundred 
and fifty feet high, and more than that in song 
and story, with dark and dangerous waters at 
their base to wreck the craft of oar and sail, 
while enthroned above sat the girl with the gold- 
en hair to lure the simple sailor to destruction. 
Today she is wreathed with smoke and steam as 
the steamboat speeds by her feet : 

Castles of Brothers who loved the same wo- 
man with a perplexing and unhappy circum- 
stance that generally accompanies such a sin- 
gular affair and naturally leads to a duel; walls 
of Falkenburg, whose bandit stole the silver 
church bell and then hung it upon the neck of 
the complaining bishop and threw him in the 
well, only to find it ringing his thieving knell; 
Coblentz at the confluence of the Rhine and Mo- 
sel, a strong military point for two thousand 
years; Ehrenbreitstein, the German Gibraltar, 
just across from Coblentz, formidable in appear- 
ance and filled with dark and deadly secrets of 
arms, powder and shell ; Stolzenfels castle, high 
up and airy as the proverbial castle in Spain; 
Ems, just opposite a famous watering place with 
a national monument surmounted by an eagle, 
which doesn't look like sharing a nest with a dove 



LEIPZIG, FRANKFORT, THE RHINE. 253 

for some years to come; Seven Mountains, the 
Rhine's highest elevation, the king of which is 
the Drachenfels, full of dragon history in its 
old ruins, but more inviting now in the new cas- 
tle which has taken its place, and Rolandseck 
Tower, a mass of ruins around which linger love 
legends, strong and new as the human heart. 

Wagner had not far to go to find a stream 
of inspiration which has made him a kind of 
Shakespeare in the musico-dramatic world. 

In all this I have just outlined the skeleton of 
what was a beautiful, breathing trip, and must 
be shared to be appreciated. Victor Hugo, com- 
paring it with the Seine, Rhone, Tiber, Danube 
and Nile, says : "Le Rhin reunit tout." 

Cologne, decorated with flags, gave us a wel- 
come, but I learned it was the occasion of the 
fiftieth anniversary of guarding the town. It 
had a record in the old Roman times; boasted 
the names of Trajan and Silvanus, and was 
named by Nero's mother Colonia Agrippina. It 
is connected by a pontoon bridge of hundreds of 
boats to Deutz across the Rhine. We drove 
around the city, its old walls, admired the big 
railroad bridge and King William's statue, visit- 
ed stores and shops, making purchases of its fa- 
mous soap and eau de cologne. I showed my 
sympathy with the Salvation Army by buying 



256 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. ; 

copies of its "Krieg's Ruf" (War Cry) ; and, as 
it was Saturday night and late, turned in early at 
Hotel du Nord. 

Sunday morning was beautiful. Many people 
were in carriages and there were hundreds of 
wheelers out for a spin, but we preferred to go to 
church, especially as there was no wilderness of 
pictures and statuary to be visited. As Mount 
Blanc towers above surrounding mountains, so the 
glorious cathedral rises above all the other edi- 
fices. Begun in the thirteenth century and fin- 
ished in the nineteenth, it is an illustration of 
God's slowly unfolding plan of the "house not 
made with hands," in the human heart. The ar- 
chitecture is Gothic and it is built in the form of 
a cross. There are old and rich colored win- 
dows ; the heart of Mary de Medici is buried here, 
and the tourist sees the bones of three kings, and 
jewels and gold are in richest profusion. The 
architect is unknown, but he erected a stone stair 
on which the devout soul climbs to heaven. Its 
two towers, five hundred and twelve feet high 
each, are fingers pointing to the sky declaring 
that God has a house of prayer on earth. 

Between Switzerland the superb and this Ger- 
many the great I might make points of compari- 
son and contrast. I will just say that "to suckle 
fools and chronicle small beer" was never in- 



LEIPZIG, FRANKFORT, THE RHINE. 257 

tended to apply to the Vaterland, for I found 
some of the brainiest scholars and biggest steins 
I have anywhere met. However, all is well that 
ends well. Germany is a great country; its thrifty 
and frugal people make a great nation ; whether 
it be army, classics or commerce, Emperor Will- 
iam intends that his nation shall be in the fore- 
front rank of continental and world-wide prog- 
ress. I have only one criticism, and it is this, 
that while the Germans are models in their lives, 
they are very loose in their language and given 
to grammatical divorce between their subjects 
and predicates. The American idea that they 
cut up a verb and plant a part of it here and a 
part of it there, and then throw a shovelful of 
big words between, is true, and takes me back to 
my boyhood days. It was in Newark, N. J. I 
had been excluded from four public schools for 
"insubordination," and as a last resort was sent 
to a private German school. Mr. Bach was my 
teacher, a scholarly, elderly, stiff legged German, 
who used a cane, wore a black cap on a bald 
head, had a big wart on his nose, a long pipe in 
his mouth, gray whiskers on his chin, a high 
collar whose points reached to his ears, a florid 
complexion on his face, and carried a horsewhip 
alternating with a harness trace, with which to 
arouse my flagging spirits when I read or recited 



2S8 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. l 

the first chapter of John's gospel. He was earn- 
est, but not always devout, for again and again 
he interrupted me with a cut and the innocent 
curse, "Du verdamte." Since that happy time 
years have passed and I have enjoyed the gran- 
deur of Goethe and the sweetness of Schiller, One 
word I can never forget. From the dense forest 
of the German dictionary it comes like a silver 
ribboned stream flowing and flashing through 
my mind. I hear it with Hope's music, at the 
front door, at the depot, at the wharf, and at the 
grave echoing on to the eternal Fatherland, and 
it is this : "Auf Wiedersehen." 



CHAPTER XXn. 

THE LOWLANDS — HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 

If "an honest confession is good for the soul," 
I want to begin this letter on Holland by saying 
that I am a Dutchman. Paul gloried that he was 
a Roman citizen, I, that I am an American, yet 
I take a warrantable pride in the thought that on 
my mother's side my ancestors were Hollanders ; 
that I was rocked in a Dutch cradle; sat in a 
Dutch chair ; was fed from a silver spoon, one 
of a hundred made out of an old Dutch silver 
tankard ; dressed before a Dutch mirror, and that 



HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 259 

in the old Dutch Bible, with its great lids, heavy 
clasps and curious engravings of the sixteenth 
century, my name appears in orthodox fashion 
spelled "Gerlyn Lansingh." Not "Go-i^ightly." 
Even that is not as bad as calling a little boy 
"Voosten Walbert Schimmelpennick." I wonder 
if Gorp was right when he wrote a book in Latin 
to prove that Adam and Eve spoke Dutch ? 

From Cologne we came by train through a 
watery country, which recalled the story of the 
deluge; on land where dogs and women were 
hitched to carts dragging produce to market ; by 
hundreds of mills which stood like great giants 
swinging their arms in defiance at our entrance ; 
by houses with sharp pointed roofs, red tiles, and 
open doors, above whose polished floors scoured 
tinware glistened like silver; by peasants who 
stood in their whitewashed wooden shoes, with 
hats like wash basins on their heads, and bows 
on the side like the wings of a bat, to Amsterdam. 
This city is known as the "Venice of the North," 
built on islands, with liquid streets and spanned 
by bridges under which dart no graceful gon- 
dolas, but big flat-boat barges manned by 
burghers with baggy breeches, which may be 
converted into sails when the wind blows a gale. 

My hotel was a plain brick building, with stone 
trimmings and sideway steps to the front door, 



26o TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

for lack of space on the sidewalk. The streets 
are narrow, inviting a dizzy drunken man to 
death by drowning in the canal. Looking Out 
of my window one morning I found a beam and 
pulley gallows-like affair over my head. On 
making inquiry I learned it was not for capital 
punishment, but for cleanly purposes, to hoist 
merchandise and to keep out the muddy feet of 
the butcher and baker. 

The Dutchman is devout. Here is "Oude" 
church with fine windows, big organ, and splen- 
did monuments to celebrated Dutchmen; the 
"Niewe," where kings are crowned, and where 
we found a fine carved pulpit and artistic bronze 
castings in the choir. Mynheer goes to church 
with his vrow, leaves her at the door, she sitting 
in the body of the church alone, he occupying a 
side pew. Such a plan might weaken the attend- 
ance of the young people, but it might also 
strengthen their attention to the text and sermon. 
We heard no great music, and the famous organ 
of St. Bavon is at Haarlem, but we did hear the 
beautiful chimes of church bells. 

I went to a diamond cutting establishment, 
conducted by a Jewish firm, and saw them take a 
rough stone, cut it, polish it, until it was fit for a 
monarch's crown, and learned the lesson of how 
the value and brightness of human character is 



HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 261 

the result of a process prolonged and often pain- 
ful. Some of my friends bought souvenirs for a 
big consideration from this establishment. I 
didn't. 

The Art Museum contains masterpieces of the 
Flemish and Dutch schools. Rembrandt's "Night 
Guard" and Heist's "Banquet of the Civic 
Guard," world famed. Other works, with en- 
gravings, and one of the finest collections of coins 
in the world gave us hours of instructive pleas- 
ure. Right here we may say the Dutch are not 
as stupid as they look, when we remember the 
University of Leyden, founded by William of 
Orange as a tribute of bravery during the city's 
siege ; Grotius, the great publicist, who gave re- 
form to international law; Coster, who invented 
printing; Metius and Jansen, inventors of the 
telescope, to say nothing of the pendulum clock, 
spectacles, wood engraving, cheap illustrated 
books, reform of the calendar and wearing of 
linen underclothing, which the Dutchman invent- 
en and introduced. One place I visited is indeli- 
bly impressed. It was the "Screijerstoren," 
known as the Tower of Sorrow. As early as 
1842 wives and sweethearts said good-bye to 
their husbands and lovers who were to sail a six 
years' voyage, and with eyes filled with tears, 



262 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Salter than the ocean knew, watched the white- 
winged ships fly far out to sea. 

All aboard for Rotterdam! Without being 
profane, one might say, "Holland has more dam 
towns than all the world," But the word "dam" 
means dam or dyke, so when we say Amster, 
Rotter, Schie, we mean those towns built on 
dykes, the only way to build anything here. By 
locks which were built to inundate and so flood 
out the enemy; by mills which pump out the 
marshes and furnish power for grinding, so that 
a man is rich according to the number of mills 
he owns ; by hundreds of water arteries which 
frozen in winter are thoroughfares for pleasure 
and marketing, we reached Rotterdam. We 
could scarcely see the town because of the 
bridges, masts and canal boats. 

I met men here with baggy trousers, long 
stockings, high buttoned jackets, and wooden 
shoes which clattered everywhere; women with 
lace caps and gold and silver ornaments on their 
heads ; rainbow-colored vests, and underskirts 
which they are said to wear to the number of a 
dozen. No wonder they seem to be weary and 
full of sadness. Men were smoking everywhere 
and all the time, for the Dutchman colors not 
only his nose but his pipe. It may not be true 
in Colorado that every child is born with a silver 



HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 263 

spoon in its mouth, but it would almost seem as 
if every man here was born puffing a pipe. The 
Dutchman loves his tobacco as the German his 
beer, and seems to pursue his second nature habit 
without any great injury to himself. 

Our journey to The Hague was through acres 
of red, white and blue hyacinths and jonquils. 
Holland is a paradise of flowers. There 
is a proverb that^ "Men make their fortune 
at Rotterdam, increase it at Amsterdam, and 
spend it at The Hague." We came under the last 
head. The Hague is the capital, and gives more 
evidence of land and aristocracy than we had 
yet seen. We visited a beautiful park filled with 
oaks and elms, bearing the names of famus citi- 
zens, and found a literal Eden of birds, flowers, 
trees and shrubs bobbed into fantastic shapes, 
with nestling villas, including the summer one of 
the Queen Wilhelmina. There is a fine monu- 
ment erected to William the Silent, the George 
Washington of Holland. He was Philip H.'s 
inveterate foe, and because the Spaniard could 
not get rid of him any other way, he bribed a 
man to assassinate him — a common Spanish 
trick. 

As usual, I met a number of curious customs. 
Horses wearing a wide stool on their hoof to 
keep out of the mud; sleds with oiled runners 



264 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

used in summer; Dutch pink, which was a gold 
yellow; policemen hobbling around in wooden 
shoes, making more noise than an ox cart ; under- 
takers fantastically dressed, whose duty it was 
to announce the sickness or death of a man to his 
near friends ; the birth of a girl or boy baby, told 
by a white or red pin-cushion hanging on the 
door ; children wearing a padded cushion on their 
head surmounted by whalebone to keep them 
from a hard fall. As if this were not enough, I 
further learned that the main entrance to the pal- 
ace was by the back door ; that girls hired their 
beaux to take them to the fair, and that when 
they wanted to marry, they sent their lover a 
glove, which, with us, would be construed into 
getting the mitten. 

Two miles from The Hague is Scheveningen, 
reached after a ride through a park made up of 
aisles of trees. This seaside resort has the usual 
hotels, crowds, chairs and bathing carts, with at- 
tendant music, eating, drinking, dancing, and 
flirting. Dudes, flirts and tourists come and go, 
but the fishermen and women stay forever. The 
women are taller in proportion than the men, and 
some of them graceful and with bright faces and 
hair to match the sunshine. Others look sad and 
worn, and it's no wonder when you think of their 
endless work of scrub, scrub, drench, drench, 



HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 265 

deluge, deluge. If "cleanliness is next to Godli- 
ness," Holland is nearest heaven. I venture this 
in opposition to Phillip IL, who said "Holland is 
nearest hell." Old men in old houses, with old 
faces, in old clothes, are the literal "Toilers of the 
sea." In this spirit they keep company with their 
Dutch brothers who build dykes, water-roads, 
ship-canals, magnificent old cities, colleges, 
galleries, churches, parks, factories, herring pack- 
eries and gin shops. The Dutchman is artistic as 
well as industrious. "Picturesque Holland" is 
often heard in art talk, and that because of the 
costumes of the people, their poses, landscapes, 
tools and houses, with their interiors which make 
"atmosphere." Color, atmosphere and fine lines, 
so necessary to the truly artistic mind, are found 
here in such abundance that many medals have 
been awarded for Dutch subjects painted by Eng- 
lish and by French artists. To the charge that 
the Dutch are not artistic I submit their magnifi- 
cent picture galleries, in which Rembrandt, Hals, 
Heist, Dow, Paul Potter and Teniers bear wit- 
ness. The average critic will find it difficult in 
art matters to "beat the Dutch." 

This is just what might be expected of de- 
scendants 'of a nation which led the van of prog- 
ress in the sixteenth century, and with varied in- 
telligent industries in the providence of God were 



266 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

driven to America to lay the foundation of our 
national greatness. The Dutch brought the ideas 
of art in the home, science for the multitude, re- 
ligion for the masses, and government for the 
nation. Dutch influence in our revolutionary 
and constitutional making epochs was so marked 
that Franklin admitted the obligation and wrote : 
"In love of liberty and bravery in defense of it, 
Holland has been our great example." 

In respect to schools, teachers, churches, min- 
isters, best kind of laws, written ballot, commun- 
ity of freemen, and inextinguishable love of lib- 
erty it would be easy to prove that America is 
only a homeopathic preparation of Dutch stock. 

I found that the educated Dutchman and wo- 
man as a rule read Dutch, French, English and 
German, and often spoke them. Foreigners as a 
rule didn't care to learn their language, so the 
Hollander learned theirs. At an industrial book 
exhibit Germany was represented by machinery, 
France by design and illustration, and Holland 
by what the exhibition was founded to illustrate, 
namely the book. The Dutch are not in the front 
rank of literary producers, yet this little country 
the size of New Jersey leads the world in propor- 
tion to the number of books printed within her 
own borders. "A little comer with a little book," 
one reads on the portrait of the Dutch monk, 



HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 267 

Thomas a Kempis, who, next to the Bible, has 
written one of the most famous reUgious books, 
"Imitation of Christ." 

To these characteristics add the inherited vir- 
tue of bravery. Recall the Burial Riot, when wo- 
men and children formed a mock funeral pro- 
cession to protest against new burial laws; Van 
Speyk, who blew up his ship and himself rather 
than have the Belgians capture it ; Van der Werf , 
who ofifered his body to his starving companions 
for food rather than surrender to the Spaniards. 

This is the type of man England is trying to 
beat. Apart from the theory of which side is 
right, or what government is best suited for the 
future development of the African continent, the 
fact remains that the whole world admires the 
great and glorious grit of the Boers. Kruger is 
not a gorilla, but a Bible, liberty-loving man ; the 
Boers are not beasts, but men of commendable 
intelligence, bravery and character, though they 
drink Holland gin and smoke incessantly. 

In their struggle for the last three years the 
spirit has been the same as that of our fathers 
in the War of the Revolution. The circumstances 
may be different, but like the old French heroes, 
their motto is, "The old guard dies, but never 
surrenders." Out of the night in Darkest Africa 



268 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

may the light of the truest Hberty, equality and 
fraternity soon dawn. 

Our locomotive drank and smoked on leav- 
ing Holland and whirled us through fine farms 
and by beautiful little towns. The country is 
densely populated ; Phillip II. spoke of its numer- 
ous villages as one large town. 

Antwerp, which means "on the wharf," is a 
prosperous city whose shores are lined with 
ships along quays build by Napoleon I. It was 
at one time the most splendid city in Europe, 
with its palaces and cathedrals, but the money- 
loving, murderous Spaniards sacked the city and 
in three days destroyed $6,000,000 of property 
and murdered eight thousand men, women and 
children. For this sin and the expulsion of the 
Jews and Moors from her territory, "even handed 
justice" has made Spain pay the utmost farthing. 

The visitor is shown the magnificent equestrian 
monument of Leopold ; Reubens' house and stat- 
ue, the artist whom the citizens adore, who sways 
the sceptre of the brush and at the mention of 
whose name the face of the dullest Belgian grows 
bright ; Matsy's well-curb and pictures whose love 
for the daughter of an artist made him change 
his trade and learn painting. The cathedral, 
seen a long time before we reached the city, 
points its spired finger to the sky. The tower 



I HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 269 

is four hundred and three feet, and this is the 
only church in Europe with six aisles ; there is 
a chime of an hundred bells in its spire, a spire 
that Napoleon admired and compared to a piece 
of Mechlin lace. It has a pulpit of fine carved 
wood representing the expulsion of Adam and 
Eve from the Garden ; Reubens' "Elevation" and 
"Descent" from the cross, and the "Assumption" 
painted in sixteen days, are masterpieces of 
countless value. 

Brussels is Belgium's capitol, a kind of vest 
pocket edition of Paris, with substantial build- 
ings, showy windows, stylish people, shaded 
boulevards and good clean walks. Some of the 
show places are the Bird market opened once a 
week with all varieties of the feathered tribe for 
cash, the flower market opened twice a week, a 
paradise of color and fragrance, and their mer- 
chants industrious and happy as one ever sees. 
One of the most historic buildings, with superb 
Gothic architecture, is the Hotel de Ville. It has 
a beautifully ornamented ceiling and rich carved 
oak furnishings, while hanging on the wall are 
pictures of William the Silent, Grotius and Eg- 
mont. 

The town would be incomplete without a 
church and the finest is St. Gudule. In spite of 
religious influence there are some art features 



270 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

in Brussels which make one alone or in company 
blush for shame. 

The park here is beautiful and unique, colon- 
naded with statues, notably those of Egmont and 
Hoorn, those Netherland heroes who, though 
loyal to Rome, opposed Phillip II's. persecution 
and were accordingly executed. The palace 
Royale has a fine equestrian statue of Godfrey de 
Bouillon, who, on this very spot, in 1097, raised 
the ensign of the cross and urged his fellows to 
join him in a crusade to Jerusalem to rescue the 
Savior's sepulchre from the Saracens and place 
the cross where the crescent stood. 

The Bourse is fine within and without, while 
the Palace of Justice costing over ten millions 
of dollars is as magnificent as it is mammoth and 
vies in its way with any similar public building 
in our country. As in other European cities, we 
find an historic column two hundred and eighty- 
five feet high, with bronze figures at the corners 
of the pedestal symbolizing what constitutes Bel- 
gium's greatness and ours, namely, liberty of the 
press, education, meeting and religion. 

War's havoc and dogs have been let slip here 
and in the surrounding country many times. 
Who does not recall Byron's lines : "There was 
a sound of revelry by night and Belgium's capital 
had gathered there her beauty and her chivalry" ? 



, HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. 271 

What a tragedy was that fifth act, and to come 
here and not see Waterloo would be to read Ham- 
let and leave the prince out. Next to Marathon, 
this battle field most impressed me. Its Heroes' 
Mound, with the view of the plain, is like the 
tower at Gettysburg- and Lookout Mountain. 
The world knows the story of Napoleon and 
Wellington by heart. It remembers the chateau 
Hougomont against which the French forces 
vainly hurled themselves all day. It calls 
up the names of Grouchy, and Blucher. Today 
nature spreads out her harvest of grass and flow- 
ers to hide forever the horrors of war, "rider and 
horse — friend, foe — in one red burial blent." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
FROM NICE TO MONACO. 

I wish I were an artist and could make a can- 
vas large and glorious enough to include the 
wondrous beauty of France. We came to this 
modern paradise from Genoa. At Ventinglia, 
the station between Italy and France, the custom 
officers fiercely fell upon us. It seemed to me 
they exerted themselves in their attempt to usurp 
the prerogatives of the Almighty. 



272 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT, 

We reached Nice in high spirits. I climbed 
on the bus and tipped our driver to race to the 
Hotel Westminster, 

The city is very picturesque with the high lime- 
stone for a background and the little Paglione 
river to the Mediterranean side in front. Near 
by were vines with foliage and clusters and olive, 
orange and mulberry trees in great profusion. 
The city is well supplied with churches for all 
grades of faith; with theaters, gardens, prome- 
nades and a crystal palace for pleasure seekers. 
Industrial life is represented in factories of per- 
fumery, liquor, oil, soap, furniture and leather. 
The town was named in honor of a victory once 
gained, but, hke a ball of string in a kitten's 
frolic, it has had many sudden changes and ex- 
periences since. Fortune may come or go but 
its fairy land of plants always remain and they 
have a carnival of flowers as at Rome in which 
the battle and bombardment consist of sweet- 
meats and flowers. There was a fine road for a 
spin but no wheel was available so I went to the 
shore where the mystic fingers of the waves were 
writing Elk hieroglyphs on the sand. The bath 
houses were empty for it was early and chilly, but 
the fishermen were hard at work hauling in nets 
filled with sardines. 

Nice is just what its letters spell. That night 



' FROM NICE TO MONACO. 273 

with g-Iare of gold, red of rose, and cloud o'er 
head floating to sea of blue, the city looked like 
the new Jerusalem, and, with another, I sighed, 
"to think the sands of another happy day have 
ebbed away." 

One of the finest roads, begun by Napoleon I 
as a military route between France and Italy, is 
the Cornice road. The day we drove over was 
one of sunshine and peace. It led us through 
lemon, palm and shade trees, as well as olives 
many years old; led us down by sapphire bay, 
sandy beach, wave-worn rock; led us around 
vine-clad, rose-festooned walls ; led us high up 
by towers, villages and castles with the sea 
rippling or dashing itself against bare rocks. No 
wonder the Greeks and Romans loved these 
shores and left their cities and loitered here. I 
could myself, forever and a day, if I had the com- 
pany I liked. Scenery and solitude are all right 
in their way but I agree with Cowper in approv- 
ing the shrewd remark of the Irishman who said, 
"How passing sweet is solitude, yet give me still 
a friend in my retreat, to whom I may whisper, 
'Solitude is sweet.' " 

I was reminded of the proverb, "There's many 
a slip," on our return. As we came up the 
hill we were encountered by an automobile 
whose chafifeur had lost control of the machine. 



274 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. j 

Down it came, our driver struck his horses and 
we pulled out, just missing its hind wheel and 
grazing the umbrella of one of our party. The 
ladies in the horseless carriage cried out with 
alarm as the vehicle was headed toward a preci- 
pice over which they would have made the 
biggest dash of their lives, but fortunately it was 
steered successfully and went backward against 
the rocks. 

Another window into this heaven of climate 
and scenery is Mentone, fifteen miles from Nice 
and situated on a rocky point shaped like an 
amphitheater. Here as everywhere we find life's 
comedy and tragedy, men and women, the 
players, with their exits and entrances. The na- 
tives were perched on rocky heights like their 
Swiss neighbors; little white roads lassoed the 
hill sides; streets were dark and narrow with 
suitable places here and there for a bandit to 
relieve one of any detachable valuables he might 
have. Men and women looked careworn and sad 
but the little people, with their bright dresses 
and brighter faces, suggested innocence and joy. 
I saw crowds of beggars blind, or with feet and 
arms gone, and an old man in a cart with dogs 
at his feet and sides. Public washing tubs are 
numerous, but with no evidence of recent use, re- 
minding me of the boy's statement that his "fath- 



FROM NICE TO MONACO. 275 

er was a Methodist but he wasn't working much 
at it now." Below, by the sea shore, the hotels 
were filled with invalids and tired foreigners who 
had come here for a cure or rest that they might 
not need the rest of the grave so soon. The cli- 
mate is most agreeable in winter and summer, 

Verdi, the great composer, rested here, or tried 
to; but the festive organ-grinders bothered him 
half to death day and night by snatches of "Ah, 
I have Sighed to Rest Me." The great musician 
found relief by renting a house in which there 
was a large storeroom. He went out and hired 
all the organs in the town for the season, paying 
them what the owners would have made if they 
had played, and took the offensive instruments to 
his place and put them under lock and key. If 
there is no music in a rest, it is the making of 
music, and Verdi received inspiration for future 
work. 

That afternoon we walked under olive trees 
centuries old; visited shops where the wood is 
made into souvenirs, wandered through lemon, 
olive and pine trees for the squeeze, press and 
sighing moods of commerce and the "As You 
Like it" of human caprice. 

Nine miles east of Nice, surrounded by blue 
mountain and opalescent Mediterranean, is the 
well-known resort of Monaco whose beauty of 



276 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. | 

climate and situation has been sung from the 
poet Lucan to the last traveler. The town is on 
the summit of a hill nearly two hundred feet 
above the shore, and surrounded with ramparts. 
Nature furnished the site, the stone, the sea and 
surroundings and giant geraniums, lemon, palm 
and eucalptus trees in tropical abundance. Add 
to this what man has done with parks and orna- 
ments, and the place seems nice enough to be 
good. 

The most famous or infamous thing is the 
Casino. I saw a fine building ; I was met at the 
door, carefully looked over by an ofificial, given 
a card of admission and entered the gambling 
hall, where I found fourteen tables in full blast 
and was informed that I could bet even or odd 
anywhere from one to six thousand francs. Not 
believing in the ethics of the game and knowing 
that only about one in every two hundred "broke 
the bank at Monte Carlo," I was content to look 
on while detectives near by watched me and the 
other visitors. Men and women were staking 
their all, or somebody else's, on the turn of a 
wheel or card. 

Half the players were women. They were 
beautifully dressed, but they had a blase look 
which the brilliant lights overhead could not 
make beautiful. I learned they played every day 



FROM NICE TO MONACO. 277 

from noon to midnight, Sunday's included. The 
intense excitement of their faces when they lost 
or won is an unforgotten lesson. I understand 
the game is "honestly" conducted. Men are led 
on until the percentage is in favor of the bank. 
Then the loser goes out and shoots himself, a 
thing he should have thought of before he went 
in. The Russians are said to be the heaviest 
players and following them the French, German, 
American and English in their love for the game. 
Unlike our cities, the inhabitants are denied ac- 
cess to the table and are exempt from all taxes 
as an equivalent. So the poor people, debarred 
from playing, because of moral or moneyed 
reasons, are denied the further privilege of mak- 
ing false returns to the tax collector. The Prince 
of Monaco rules over about eight square miles. 
He lives in an old-time looking place with draw- 
bridge and portcullis. His motto is, "La roulette, 
la source de ma force." Gambling is wrong be- 
cause it is contrary to the principles of mutual 
benefit which underlie legitimate transactions, en- 
forcing an idleness which breeds vice and takes 
away the taste for simpler pleasures. 

Wordsworth said: "Nature never did betray 
the heart that loved her." I am sure he would 
have fallen in love with France's beautiful scenery 
of cloud-capped tower and hillside waving with 



278 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

wheat and corn ; embroidered fields and flowers ; 
stately trees, streets and old castles mantled with 
ivy; clipped hedges, red tiled houses and snow- 
white roads ; curious villages, peasants working 
in the fields and all in the light of sparkling sun- 
shine, blue sky and perfect cleanliness. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. 

Rabelais said of the Parisians, "They live all 
their lives in a barrel and only look out of the 
bung hole." Well, I have been to the barrel 
and looked into the bung and find Paris a city 
bounded on the north, south, east and west by 
life, levity, luxury and love. 

I was met at the depot by a gentleman in uni- 
form, who with no Niagara manner, called a 
cabby for me, and was driven furiously through 
crowded streets, over which people struggled to 
cross at intervals, with a little platform like a 
city of refuge between the curbs. When a man 
gets knocked down or run over he is arrested for 
being in the drivers' way. I learned this later, 
when I tried to navigate the streets and had lifted 
up my umbrella and voice in vain, the policemen 
crying, "Celerite!" 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS 270 

Paris may have no homes, but she has hotels, 
and they are first-class things. Mine was Hotel 
de Terminus, central, large and splendid in all 
its appointments. The reading room offered the 
coveted English magazines and best of all, the 
Paris edition of the New York Herald ; the din- 
ing room was filled with nervous, moustached 
waiters who knew all your wants before you 
could say "Jack Robinson" or "Garcon;" in the 
parlor there was a kind of a 'phone in which, 
if you were too tired to go out, you could drop a 
franc in the slot and hear Bernhardt rave, or 
Signor roar. 

For weeks German had jolted me like a flat 
wheel over a rough mountain road and I was 
prepared to have the French language give me 
springs and rubber tires over a macadam avenue. 
It is a beautiful language, scientific, epigram- 
matic, polished, and when it comes to sentiment, 
is as warm as the fire Prometheus stole from 
heaven. For practical affairs, if you can't speak 
it, you will find numerous signs on different 
stores, "Ici on parle Anglais," but I found them 
a heartless deception. I went repeatedly for 
films, stationery and other articles, but the 
French-American speaking Englishman had al- 
ways just gone to dinner or was out somewhere 
else. As a result I was put out again and again, 



28o TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

and the tragic interest of the clerks and my 
dialogue and gestures always filled the house, but 
are too sad to relate. 

Impulsiveness is a French characteristic. 
Human nature may be divided into twoparts, one 
in general and French in particular, combining 
the caprices and contradictions of the other, and 
making a distinct species. In the Dreyfus affair 
there was no doubt of government corruption 
and that officers for a long time had sold out state 
secrets, but the mere mention of the name "Drey- 
fus" set the Frenchmen wild. President Loubet 
entered the ball room with his officials and re- 
ceived no honor, but when Marchon and Fashoda 
came in they were cheered, the band played and 
the people went crazy. I had only to ask the 
chambermaid a simple question and she became 
nervously attentive, sweet as your mother and 
as helpful as your neighbor's best girl. 

The Exposition was a great show. I was 
whirled around the movable side- walk; circum- 
navigated the Great Globe; made the ascent of 
the Eiffel tower where Babel is outdone by a 
'graceful lace work of iron nine hundred and 
eighty-five feet high with theatrical sittings and 
room for one thousand people; visited the Tro- 
cadero, the memorial of the exposition in 1878 
filled with trophies of art and science and with 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. 281 

minaret towers nearly three hundred feet 
high and crescent galleries reminding one of the 
Orient; rambled through Old Paris reproduced, 
and then sought rest and refreshment in the 
Swiss village outside, one of the most realistic 
and unique exhibitions of the whole exposition. 

The chef d'ouvre of all my amusement was my 
attendance at the Grand Opera, the finest theater 
in Paris or anywhere else that I know of. It is 
situated in the center of the city with fine sur- 
roundings ; surmounted by a dome with a regal 
coronet ; Apollo plays his golden harp ; its famous 
staircase is made of solid white marble, onyx 
balustrades, jasper banisters and matchless 
pedestals. The foyer is superbly decorated and 
is the place where wealth, beauty and fashion 
walk and flirt between acts. 

I heard Gounod's "Faust" complete in score, 
orchestration and stage setting. The great com- 
poser himself used to lead here. Some of his 
musicians performed that night. This was royal 
opera in name and in deed. 

After this it was time to be pious and go to 
church, and we did go the next day to the La 
Madeleine which Napoleon intended for a temple 
of glory; he proposed but God disposed of him 
at Waterloo and the original church plan was 
carried out. It is one of the best specimens of 



282 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Greek architecture and reminded me of the 
Temple of Theseus at Athens. 

Later we went to St. Denis cathedral, for 
centuries the burial place of kings. In 1793 the 
convention decreed that the royal tombs must 
go and a mad crowd acting on the advice battered 
down Charlemagne's bronze gates, smashed 
stained glass windows, desecrated the altars, 
overturned statues and threw royal remains in 
the ditch near by and covered them over with 
-lime. For twelve days this sacrilege was carried 
on. Later the former beauty was restored as far 
as possible by Napoleon L 

The Pantheon, or St. Genevieve, was intended 
by the convention for illustrious men. In front 
there is a gigantic bas-relief of Cuvier and 
Fenelon, while in the crypt beneath lie the re- 
mains of Voltaire and of Rousseau. The church 
is in the form of a Greek cross with dome in the 
center, and the walls are covered with Joan of 
Arc decorations. At Mont Marte we attended 
the church called the Vow of the Sacred Heart. 
We made a pilgrimage up the stairs and were re- 
warded by a magnificent view of Paris and en- 
virons. The vast proportions of the tower and 
dome, the size of the crypt and all the appointr 
ments make it a most marvelous structure. 

Notre Dame is the most historic, most famous 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. 283 

and most visited. It is situated on a little island 
in the Seine river. Today the cross replaces the 
pagan symbol of worship of a thousand years 
ago. What a name to conjure with. Romans, 
Revolutionists, Rationalists, and now the Re- 
public. It is a glorious monument of Gothic 
architecture, but renowned most of all for its as- 
sociation with the life and death, the honor and 
disgrace of royal and plebeian characters. 

A church of peculiar interest is St, Germain-' 
I'Auxerrios, from which tower, Aug. 24, 1572, 
by order of Charles IX., the bell rang for the 
massacre of the Protestants. St. Bartholomew 
is not forgotten. 

I found Versailles a stupid town, but a splen- 
did trophy of Louis XIV. and XV., that smart set 
of high rollers who with Maintenon and Pompa- 
dour lived lives not advocated in the Ten Com- 
mandments. The courtyard and statue of Louis 
XIV. are imposing ; the building is a museum of 
statues and paintings illustrating French history 
and glory. 

Here one sees the famous Gallery of Battles 
with its busts of great generals and those gigan- 
tic historical paintings celebrating French vic- 
tories which the Parisian idolizes and the Ger- 
mans in their conquest kindly spared. Petit 
Trianon, near by, recalls the happy life of the 



284 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

young queen, Marie Antoinette, who romped 
and rollicked like a child in the home, mill, bou- 
doir and dairy. 

I visited St. Germain-en-Laye, the summer re- 
sort of Paris, thirteen miles from the city, on the 
bank two hundred feet above the Seine river, 
with a noble forest of fifteen thousand acres ad- 
jacent. Its terrace is about eight thousand feet 
by one . hundred wide, dates from 1672, 
and is beautified by many lime trees over a hun- 
dred years old. One cannot forget the fine view 
and promenade. I went into the old castle which 
is now a museum of national antiquity, and 
dined in the Henry IV. pavillion, now used as a 
hotel, in which place Thiers died. The city is 
known as the birthplace of Louis XIV., Charles 
IX. and Margaret of Navarre. 

I left all this hurriedly to make a train and 
as badly perplexed as the French priest who was 
approached by his parishoner who said, "Father, 
you don't know me?" "No," replied the priest. 
"Well, this is singular," said the man, "seeing 
you rendered me the greatest service one man 
could render another. You buried my wife." 

French morality often seems to be a very 
elastic thing, a name and sometimes not even 
that. Popular balls are held Saturday night un- 
til 6 o'clock Sunday morning, when the gay vo- 



PARIS AND THE PARISIANS. 285 

taries drag themselves to breakfast and sleep all 
day. 

There are good women as well as grisettes, 
handsome as well as homely, and when it comes 
to ornament they all dress. Their costumes are 
dreams, enchanting all eyes, but have too often 
been planned by Circes who never knew the 
name of wife and who try to hide the ravages 
of age and dissipation by fine clothes and the 
toilet arts of powder, pomatum and pompadour. 

But there is brain as well as beauty. Here as 
well as elsewhere woman is back of the throne; 
she has often governed France, and the Paris 
salon has always been a great political power. 



CHAPTER XXV. 
THE LAST OF FRANCE. 

Paris is a synonym for pleasure. I found no 
relative of Mantilini to say that life was a "demd 
horrid grind." The French are not contented, 
as a French traveler said the Bostonians were, 
with "Thursday evening lecture and a prayer 
meeting." Napoleon knew and took advantage 
of their pleasure-loving nature when he said: 
"Gild the dome of the Invalides." One has not 



286 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

far to go to find entertainment ; cafes bright and 
rich on the inside and on the forty-foot sidewalk 
in front many Httle tables where hundreds of 
men and women drink Medoc, St. Julien, Bor- 
deaux and absinthe while they talk and visit with 
each other and watch the passing show. Cafes 
Chantants, or Folies Bergere, and Moulin 
Rouge, and Maxims, where charms strike the 
eye and not the heart; where Plato's earthly 
Venus is in evidence and between whom and our 
American women we must erect a cordon sani- 
taire if De Tocqueville's estimate of the cause 
of our prosperity is to remain true, "The noble 
character of the American women." 

Max O'Rell, who spent three years in Amer- 
ica, says: "The most interesting woman in the 
world is the American woman." He might have 
added with equal truth, the most intelligent, 
modest and beautiful. 

Lack of one of these American characteristics 
led to an episode in one of our company's experi- 
ence. With his wife he attended the theater; he 
went out between acts for a drink. Two women 
came and sat by his side at the table, said "Bon 
soir," talked French and sentiment in all the 
dumb languages at their command. He said, 
"Du vin?" They said "Oui," and he ordered two 
bottles. After a little delay the waiter came 



I THE LAST OF FRANCE. ^87 

bringing two bottles and a liberal lunch. The 
gentleman objected, but the waiter said that the 
women had ordered it. This friendly vis-a-vis 
cost him about twenty francs. 

The automobile was the "fast" thing in Paris 
and what I saw during several days I will give 
you a bird's eye view of in a few minutes. With 
a guide, who knew his business and a Jehu chaf- 
feur, we sped like the Seine or the insane 
through Paris ; over well paved and wide streets 
through which rolled life and wealth; by side- 
walks with no unsightly telegraph poles; build- 
ings uniform in height so that one does his own 
sky-scraping; names on street corners in white 
and blue enamel (respectfully submitted to our 
city fathers); news stands called "kiosques," ar- 
tistic outside and informing inside; lamp posts 
of beautiful decoration which a man could be 
pardoned for leaning up against about 2 o'clock 
in the morning; pedestrians, wheels, and omni- 
busses with no crowd, for in Paris you pay your 
money and get a seat, and when the bus is full 
you meet the word ""Complet." Now we sped 
through street Capacines known as the place of 
artists and wealthy bankers, then along the his- 
toric Rivoli with its shops, arcades and hotels 
through which flows a stream of tourists and 
shoppers. We stopped long enough at Bon 



288 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Marche to invest in a dozen pairs of kid gloves 
and made it our duty to try them on once in or- 
der to avoid meeting the custom-house duty for 
importation. A fresh start and we whirl by the 
garden of Monceau formerly associated with 
Louis Philippe, now the aristocratic quarter of 
modern Paris witth its park, lake colonnades and 
soldier lovers, and striking statue of Guy de 
Maupassant and the mistress whom he loved and 
for whom he dared God and man. Now comes 
the rendezvous of high life, the Bois de Bou- 
logne, a kind of Central park with trees, foun- 
tains, lakes, aristocratic drives in the morning, 
lovers in the evening and nurses looking after 
bare legged and beautiful, well dressed little boys 
and girls in the afternoon. Near by was Anna 
Gould's $4,000,000 palace and yet some people 
are not happy, count or no account. 

We mixed the sunshine of this with a drive 
through different quarters; to the French mar- 
ket which, like the one in New Orleans,is a real 
life preserver, the Parisians' daily food bill being 
estimated at over $600,000; then to the morgue, a 
death preserver, with its horror of unfortunates, 
"mad from life's history, glad to death's mys- 
tery;" the sewer, which Jean Valjean immortal- 
ized, conducts not only the drainage but is used 
as a passage for tubes and pipes. The Paris 




FRENCH PEASANT GIRL 



THE LAST OF FRANCE. 289 

sewer system is eight hundred miles long and so 
clean that without offense to nose or foot, you 
may make a partial trip over the netting. 

"Allons," said the driver, and we went to the 
Conciergerie with its dungeon once occupied by 
Marie Antoinette; then to the guillotine, keen, 
cruel and corrective. But there was something 
of greater interest than all this and that was the 
site of the bloody Bastile, a prison of despotism 
for five hundred years, which the outraged people 
captured and destroyed. Its storming is cele- 
brated now by a great annual festival, A huge 
shaft has been erected, surmounted with the 
gilded figure of Liberty, which holds a torch in 
one hand and a broken chain in the other. Sure- 
ly the world does move. 

A most suggestive place is the cemetery of 
Pere la Chaise — a city of the dead where sleep 
in marble couches the brain and heart of France. 
The grounds are filled with masterpieces of 
sculpture. The most frequented grave Is that of 
Heloise and Abelard — a shrine toward which all 
good lovers make a religious pilgrimage. The 
estimate of these two people varies all the way 
between the blessing of Lamartine and the curs- 
ing of Mark Twain. Of this, at least, we are 
sure, they are dead — that in life they learned the 
sad, sweet lesson of loving "not wise- 



290 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

ly but too well," that whether they lived together 
or were separated in nunnery or monastery, they 
were one in spirit, one in death, in one grave 
now and eternity has given them one home. 

We could not omit old Paris and so went to 
the Palais Royal, the former home of Cardinal 
Richelieu. Like birds of passage we flew to 
Place du Carrousel square with its arch of tri- 
umph erected by Napoleon. The old horses of 
St. Mark's of Venice once adorned it, but a 
change of fortune took them back to the Adriatic 
and those you see here now are new. The Ven- 
dome Column commemorates the battle of Aus- 
terlitz. It is made of bronze from captured Ro- 
man and Austrian cannon and is covered from 
base to summit with figures, illustrative of the 
French army on the march. Napoleon's statue 
looks down from the top; The mad Commune 
overturned this monument but it was set up 
again and is now the meeting place of the old 
soldiers who, with citizens, deck it with flowers 
on the anniversary of certain great victories. But 
the most magnificent arch in Paris or Rome is 
the Arche de Triomphe from which twelve ave- 
nues radiate as the points of a star from the 
center. It was erected in memory of Napoleon's 
victories. There are medallions with the name 
of the battles, and statuary illustrative of the 



'■ THE LAST OF FRANCE. 291 

great general's campaign. I climbed to the 
height of the arch, one hundred and sixty feet, 
and a vision of the past came over me. O, 
mighty dead who still lives in the love and life 
of French worshippers. 

Now we glide by statues of Moliere, Joan of 
Arc, and Triomphe la Republique, eighty-two 
feet high, with liberty, equality and fraternity at 
its base and a lion holding a ballot box; by tlTe 
Palais Justice and La Bourse, a financial pan- 
demonium very much like the Board of Trade in 
Chicago. The driver stopped long enough here 
to take a drink and light a new cigar then started 
us for Champs Ely sees. This two-mile drive 
leads one over Elysian fields filled with carriages, 
riders and thousands of pedestrians, .while on 
either side are cafes, shade trees, lounging seats, 
Punch and Judy shows, all gay by day and glo- 
rious at night by light. 

A place of sad and suggestive interest is the 
garden of the Tuileries. Today it is a place of 
music and promenade. One vainly looks for the 
palace which the communists mined in 1871. The 
spirit which destroyed the Parthenon, the Tem- 
ple of Diana, led the vandals to ruin what had 
been a royal residence for three hundred years 
and especially associated with the leading events 
of Napoleon's life. As all roads lead to Rome 



292 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

so we traveled to Place de la Concord, the for- 
mer scene of execution of many kings and no- 
bles, but now a place of peace. Two colossal 
fountains try in vain to wash out the "damned" 
blood spots ; the obelisk from Luxor looks down 
in the silence which it has maintained for un- 
known centuries. Bronze shafts raise their torch- 
es of illumination and one counts around this 
square eight great statues illustrative of promi- 
nent French cities. Instead of flowers I noticed 
black drapery on one and learned it was for 
Strasburg which the Germans had captured in 
the late war. France will never forgive or for- 
get this loss. I was the repeated guest of Mme. 
Wile who referred to it with feeling, telling me 
that before the war she visited Germany every 
year, but since their miserable theft she would 
not set foot in their territory or let them have 
one cent of her money; and like her are many 
other loyal French women. 

If you tire of this enumeration you must re- 
member I was tired, too, but my guide and driv- 
er urged me on, and even then there are many 
things which I saw between i and 3 a. m. day 
after day which I shall have to omit. I went to 
St. Cloud, a suburb of Paris laid out as a park, 
with shade and cascades. The fountains play 
twice every month and the spectacle is attended 



THE LAST OF FRANCE. 293 

by thousands of enthusiastic visitors. The 
grand chateau was destroyed by the Prus- 
sians in 1870, and here again the Frenchman is 
inclined to omit the petition "as we forgive our 
debtors." 

Faubourg St. Antoine is the bowery of Paris. 
Here the tough element get together. They 
are ready for anything between a row and 
a revolution. The children were dirty, the wo- 
men looked greasy and the men were everything 
you would not like to meet alone in the dark. 
What a contrast between this place and Sevres 
with its most beautiful chinaware and museum 
of models or porcelain, from all climes and 
times; or Gobelin with its tapestry and carpet 
and famous art work dating from the fifteenth 
century which enabled Mr. G. and his family to 
make millions and climb to political preferment. 

I saw the parks, cafes, students, artists, fakirs, 
grisettes and model Trilbys of the Latin Quar- 
ter. St. Michael's Fountain is near by, which 
represents St. Michael as conquering the devil 
and trampling him under foot. I found some 
things which seemed to have gotten away from 
him or he had not had time to subdue. 

It is only fair to say that human nature is prac- 
tically the same everywhere. If, however, Paris 
seems worse in some respects than other places 



294 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

it is an illustration of the law of demand and 
supply. Much of the unspeakable is planned for 
the tourist who demands it and is willing to pay 
the price. 

Moreover the social atmosphere is altogether 
different. If, "Flirtation is love in water-colors" 
then Parisians are natural-born artists. They 
all do it, but so innocently and naturally and 
beautifully. Face, form and finery are attractive 
features. Since people dress so much to please 
other eyes it is but natural that they should make 
an expose of shoes, silks, and laces which would 
only be permissible in Chicago on a very rainy 
day, — Boston never. 

Lawrence Sterne in his "Sentimental Jour- 
ney," said, "There are three epochs in the empire 
of a French woman — she is a coquette, then 
Deist, then devotee." The classification still 
holds. 

Who can ever forget Vela's statue of Napo- 
leon, discrowned, disowned and with dying fin- 
gers on the outrolled map of Europe? I came 
from Versailles by Hugo's house, the dear old 
immortal man, loved next to Napoleon by both 
Les Miserables and grandissimes. At the gate- 
way of Hotel des Invalides I met an old old 
soldier who bowed, gave me a picture, took my 
franc tip and ushered me beneath a dome three 



THE LAST OF FRANCE. 295 

hundred feet high gilded like the sun. Two mill- 
ion dollars for one man's sepulchre; marble floor 
and roof, magnificent altar between which and 
the entrance is the crypt containing the sarcoph- 
agus of red porphyry resting on a dark green 
granite pedestal with marble mosaic pavement in 
the form of a star surrounded by names of great 
battles. From above, in soft splendor, fell light 
of blue, gold and emerald; surrounding were 
bronze funeral lamps and twelve marble statues, 
of which the late De Witt Talmage said, 
"One with a wreath as if to crown; one with a 
pen as if to make a record for the ages; one with 
a key as if to open the celestial gate for a de- 
parted spirit; one with a trumpet to clear the 
way for the coming of a king." 

"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." Who 
can explain this sphinx of history, as First Con- 
sul, Emperor, then defeated, repudiated, impris- 
oned at Elba and chained at St. Helena like 
another Prometheus with vultures gnawing his 
heart? Reverently I paused — then silently de- 
scended the spiral steps leading to the crypt's en- 
trance. On the right and left were the tombs 
of Duroc and Bertrand, Napoleon's two best 
friends. Over the "N" bronze doors I read the 
words he dictated at St. Helena, "I desire that 
my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine 



296 • TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

among the French people whom I loved so well." 
That they loved him is shown by the fact that 
this tomb was spared by the vandal communists 
for whom nothing else was sacred. 

Paris is the paradise of art : "Art, the counter- 
feit and counterpart of nature." Of more price- 
less value than all I have enumerated, were the 
treasures of the art galleries. The Luxembourg 
is filled with the works of modern painters and 
sculptors which remain here for ten years after 
the death of the artist, then the finest are selected 
for the Louvre. I found a few pictures warm 
enough to make fuel unnecessary in December, 
and the garden is filled with the statues of fa- 
mous women. But the Louvre! I wish my pen 
could describe what I saw; any attempt would 
be foolish as to "paint a lily or add a hue to the 
rainbow." Its superb Apollo gallery with pic- 
tured ceiling and tapestried portraits ; its antiqui- 
ties from all times and places; crown and sword 
of Napoleon, spur of Charlemagne, gems and 
regent diamonds. But beyond any moneyed val- 
ue is Murillo's sublime painting entitled the "Im- 
maculate Conception," and the world renowned 
Greek statue of Venus of Melos. Standing by 
her side, I thought of the poet Heine who, tired 
and sick at heart, came and sat at the feet of the 
statue. He says she appeared to sympathize with 



THE LAST OF FRANCE. 297 

him, but also seemed to say: "You see I have no 
arms, I cannot help you," Poor Heine! Poor 
human heart. Everywhere found with its un- 
helped hurt. 

L' Amour de la Paris? A thousand times yes, 
and thoroughly enough to say as Othello did of 
Desdemona: "Perdition catch my soul, but I do 
love thee, and when I love thee not chaos is come 
again." 

Leaving Paris I was put in a compartment car 
with four Frenchmen. It was 8 p. m., and I was 
weary of sight-seeing in gay Paree by sun and 
gaslight. No train boy came in with cracker- 
jack or gum to disturb us. I had a peaceful nap 
and was suddenly startled by three of my com- 
panions, who were talking very rapidly and mak- 
ing indescribable gestures with their hands and 
arms. "Mon Dieu," frequently entered into their 
remarks, and I supposed they were pious until 
they added some profane words not permissible 
in clerical composition. They finally made the 
guard understand they wanted to get out, which 
they did, and I was left with one companion. 

I dozed again and waked, and looking at my 
watch, found it was about time for the train to 
reach Dieppe, where I was to take the steamer 
across the channel. I said Dieppe and the man 
stared. Encore, Dieppe, and he said, "Non est 



298 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

ver," or something like it, which put me in 
doubt. I added, London, and with warmth and 
repetition, to which with strange force and ac- 
cent he said: "Impossible, impossible!" Here 
was a pretty state of affairs. He looked sober 
and sensible. I must have appeared like a fool, 
and I soon found out that I was, for I was on the 
wrong train and should have changed cars, 
where my three excitable friends did, instead of 
which I peacefully slept and had been carried in 
an opposite direction many miles away. What 
could I do? He spoke a little English and I a 
little French, and he said I was bound to Havre. 
He told me he would make it all right and ex- 
plain matters at the depot, and that I could take 
a train next day and reach my party in London 
twenty-four hours later. I didn't sleep any more. 
He continued to assure me of his protection, and 
I gratefully accepted it, with the mental reser- 
vation that I would keep my eye on my valise 
and pocket-book. After midnight we pulled into 
the Havre station. 

I was taken to the depot master, who prom- 
ised me that without extra expense I could take 
the early train next morning and go on my way 
rejoicing. I tried hard to understand him, and 
believe him ; I had to. Then my chaperone took 
me to the hotel opposite the depot. He pound- 



THE LAST OF FRANCE. 299 

ed the door and yelled and a night-capped head 
was thrust out of the window. My case was ar- 
gued and the judgment was in my favor. The 
landlord came down in decoUette at both ends of 
his robe de nuit and opened the door. 

After saying "Merci Monsieur" to my deliver- 
er I went into the hotel, through narrow halls, 
up steep stairs, until I knew in case of fire or 
murder I could never escape. I was shown a 
room in which there were two beds, one of them 
already occupied by a fellow who sat bolt up- 
right as I stumbled through the door. I said, 
"Pardon, Monsieur." 

The landlord offered a word of explanation 
and I was soon under a chaos of coarse but clean 
bed clothes. I am sure I slept with one eye open 
and that on the depot clock opposite, which I 
saw from my window. It was now 2 o'clock ; I'd 
dreamed worse than if I had been full of De- 
Quincey opium, jumped up at 4:30, was dressed 
by 5, sneaked out without waking my partner 
and was met at the cafe bar by the landlord, who 
bade me good day and offered me a drink. I told 
him I was hungry and not thirsty. He gave me 
the best he had and I paid him the best of prices 
and went over to the depot. It was three hours 
before train time, but the station master was 
there. He seemed glad to see me, said every- 



300 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

thing was all right, and told me I had some timq 
for sight-seeing. I called for a hack, had the 
driver show me the town, and was brought back 
in safety. I paid him, but I can never repay the 
station generalissimo for his kindness. If I had 
been his brother, or sister, or some one else's, 
or had owed him one thousand francs and he 
wanted me to pay it, he could not have been 
more considerate or kind. In any other country 
I would have been considered as crazy or a can- 
didate for jail or have been consigned with Judas 
to some other place where blankets were unnec- 
essary. The Frenchman is nothing if not polite. 

I was a pilgrim, and had only tar- 
ried but a night, yet I rushed around enough to 
see the arsenal, bath-houses, custom office, ship 
building yards, industrial points of fishing, mak- 
ing silk and lace, and to learn that this town was 
in the fore rank as an export point and place for 
emigration. In the near distance I saw a statue 
and found that it was Bernardin St. Pierre's and 
Havre was his birthplace. His story, "Paul 
and Virginia," is a household classic. Youth and 
old age love to read the story of the outcast boy 
and girl who grew up together on the island, 
loved and were true to each other in spite of so- 
cial rank till death in the ocean storm claimed 



THE LAST OF FRANCE. 301 

Virginia, and Paul, insane with grief at her loss, 
soon followed her to the other shore. 

From Havre to Rouen, in France, is about 
fifty miles, but some people in America have 
found it only a step, if not synonymous. This 
town is the old capital of Normandy, a great 
French city of export and import. There are 
bridges and boulevards between the old and new 
town ; educational and philanthropic institutions ; 
fine promenades and shade trees; Notre Dame 
cathedral, gate of the great clock bigger than 
grandfather's on the stair; the pulpit, where ev- 
ery year a criminal who has been condemned to 
death comes before the people, lifts up the shrine 
of St. Romain and receives pardon. The statue 
of Boieldieu, the composer of "Caliph of Bag- 
dad," "Jean du Paris," is found on a street bear- 
ing his name. Of great and ever increasing in- 
terest is the public square where Joan of Arc 
was burned in 143 1, and the tower which bears 
her name. 

After much trial and tribulation I reached 
Dieppe. "Still swings the sea, mist shrouds the 
mountain and thunder bursts on clififs and 
cloud." Dieppe is a seaport town one hundred 
and twenty-five miles northwest from Paris, sit- 
uated at the mouth of the Arques river, which 
separates the main part of the town on the West 



302 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

from Pollett on the East. The town suffered 
from the Edict of Nantes and later by bombard- 
ment from the Dutch and English. Today it 
boasts ship yards, a good harbor, where I saw a 
huge cross and statue of the Virgin for the pro- 
tection of those who embark to cross the English 
channel for New Haven on the English side. 
There are rope and barrel factories, shops where 
good watches are made, and I saw skilled work- 
ers in ivory and bone, who sustained the reputa- 
tion of their ancestors in this art work from the 
fifteenth century. I visited St. Jacques church 
and then walked the long street along the shore 
for more than a mile. It ends at the Chalk 'Cliff, 
on which there is a fifteenth century castle now 
used as a barracks. In season it is the fashion- 
able promenade, and for years this point and 
near place have been stylish watering and bath- 
ing places. It was early in the season, but I 
promenaded so much without my guide that I 
wore out my patience and my soles ; stumbled 
into a shoe shop, where the keeper fixed me up 
with leather half an inch thick, spiked together 
with hob nails which would have insured me the 
first prize for anything or anybody I had jumped 
on. At the beach I met a peasant girl with a 
basket strapped to her shoulders, carrying stones 
and pebbles the size of your hand for the new 



THE LAST OF FRANCE. 303 

town road. The sun was warm, the pack was 
heavy and the sand was deep, but there was no 
complaint. She was a picture, and I wanted 
one, and when I levelled my kodak she 
had been there before and posed as an art sub- 
ject. She smiled; I gave her a franc; she went 
her way and I mine. Like her peasant mother 
and sisters, she was a worker. In America wo- 
man is often sheltered like a hot-house plant. 
She becomes at times "the fascinating lazzaroni 
of the parlor and boudoir," having a kind of con- 
tempt for manual usefulness. On the Continent 
it is different. Les messieurs in an unknightly 
way occupy chairs and sit around the stove, while 
their French sisters look out for themselves. 

This to an American is bad taste amd unpar- 
donable, but it suggests that in France at least 
women have personality and feel they are to do 
some of the world's work. It is hideous to see 
the peasant women working with the shovel and 
pick and harnessed to a mule with a plow which 
her husband drives. They may not all be Venus 
de Milos but some manual labor would give 
them fine arms and busts instead of a wad of 
cotton batting with a pair of bones hanging at 
their sides. Such independence in the home 
would do much toward solving the American 
servant girl question and removing the objec- 



304 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

tion which the poor man urges when he says, 
"I can't afford to get married and keep house 
too." Pat was wiser; when asked if he could sup- 
port himself, he replied: "No, but I'll get mar' 
ried and Biddy will help me." 

France is indeed a most beautiful country and 
in journeying over the points of its compass I've 
learned what Macaulay meant when he said, 
"The real use of traveling and of studying his- 
tory is to keep men from being what Sam Daw- 
son was in fiction and Samuel Johnson in real- 
ity." 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
LONDON AND ITS SIGHTS. 

Beg pawdon,but don't cher know the blawsted 
English channel was as smooth as a confidence 
man when I crossed it. New Haven, England, 
loomed up with its two hundred feet high cliffs 
and fortified Castle Hill all sun-kissed with 
glory. After the custom house officers had held 
me up and found nothing, I climbed the 
side door of a queer looking train with a dummy 
looking engine that rolled as if it had wheels in 
its head, and everywhere else, to make the fifty- 



LONDON AND ITS SIGHTS. 305 

six miles to the metropolis. Brighton was only 
eight miles distant, the fashionable watering 
place, where F. W. Robertson used to preach. 
Though dead, he still speaks through the many 
ministers who work off his superb sermons in 
whole or part every Sunday. 

I was driven from the depot in a hansom to 
the splendid St. Ermine's hotel. I said, with 
Falstaff, "Shall I not take mine ease in mine 
inn?" So I rang for hot water, and when the 
buxom maid had left it at the door, I said, 
"Thanks," and after a hasty toilet, with visions 
of roast beef, plum pudding and old port, I hur- 
ried down to breakfast to learn the wide differ- 
ence between French and English cooking. 

The weather was rainy, raw, foggy and sooty; 
not vernal Hke Palestine, or voluptuous like Italy 
but like London weather itself, beastly and nasty. 
However, this was just the kind of an in-door day 
for sightseeing. I called a cabby, a big, fat, red- 
nosed man, full of ale and facts, gave him a tip 
and off went his mouth and horse; he discoursed 
on the city's roads, good walks, efficient police 
and noted objects of passing interest, all the time 
driving through crowds, grazing curbs, brushing 
wheels and popping flies from off his horse's ear 
in a wonderful way. 

I visited a number of museums, notably the 



3o6 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

South Kensington, with its fine building filled 
with articles useful and ornamental, ancient and 
modern, and collection of paintings, statuary and 
things which make a connossieur liable to forget 
the commandment against covetousness. 

Then came the world-famed British Museum, 
England's most priceless possession, with its 
manuscripts and books, prints and drawings, 
coins, and medals, Babylonish, Egyptian, Roman 
and Greek antiquities. The Elgin marbles which 
his lordship had "conveyed" from the Parthe- 
non I saw in all their beauty. At Athens I felt 
outraged at Elgin's theft and that the poor 
Greeks had only plaster casts of the originals, 
but here the marbles are safe and sound and any 
Athenian may come and "frieze" himself to his 
heart's content. 

"Lost in London" I had seen in America, but 
it was no play joke here; I don't mean the ex- 
perience I had one night at Seven Dials, but the 
feeling of isolation and desolation in a great, 
strange crowd. When DeQuincey entered Lon- 
don he felt like a wave in the Atlantic or a plant 
in a forest; really, this "mask of maniacs and 
pageant of phantoms" affected me quite the 
same. Dear old London, older than ten thou- 
sand years, how thy eight millions pour down 
streets and alleys, by Charing Cross hotel, and 



LONDON AND ITS SIGHTS. 307 

out into the Strand, beating me against Elteanor 
Cross, that soot and smoke-grimed marble block, 
erected to the memory of Edward I.'s wife, that 
rare woman who possessed the unusual com- 
bination of goodness and beauty. 

One morning I went with my friend to Temple 
Bar, not so much for a drink as to follow the 
example of Dr. Johnson, who used to come here 
and amuse himself by looking at and studying 
the crowds of people. The bar has given way to 
a memorial with a statue of royalty and the devil 
of a dragon on top; I was a little surprised at 
first, but found him on top in so many other 
places that I thought it must be all right. Tem- 
ple Bar, you know, was the dividing line between 
the EngHsh sovereigns' and lord mayor's do- 
main, a kind of patrol limit. The king had to 
ask permission to visit the town, after which 
"ma lawd" major gave him the keys and told 
him to help himself, a custom we are familiar 
with on the occasion of Elks and other religious 
convocations in our country. 

Near by I found many historical, literary 
haunts to which great and good men naturally 
gravitated, as the wise men of Greece did to, 
Athens and the up-to-date men do now from St. 
Paul to Minneapolis. After a swift tramp to 
Fleet street, to see Newspaper Row, a visit to 



3o8 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

the haunts of Milton, Goldsmith, Dickens, and 
some of the other "literary fellers" I went with 
Irving in his Sketch Book to "Little Britain" 
where the people rehgiously ate pancakes on 
Shrove Tuesday, hot-cross buns on Good Fri- 
day, roast goose at Michaelmas, sent love letters 
on St. Valentine's day, burned the Pope on No- 
vember 5th and kissed all the girls under the 
mistletoe on Christmas. 

I could give you a "tedious brief account" of 
the bridges across the Thames, notably London 
Bridge. This bridge is in no danger of "falling 
down" with the $8,000,000 invested in its con- 
struction and sentinel lamp posts along its sides, 
cast from cannon captured from the French in 
Spain. The tide of humanity pours over it as the 
Thames does under it. Cock Lane Ghosts, 
Dames Quickly, Boars' Head bums, Mother 
Shiptons, Punch and Judies, Jarley figures. Bill- 
ing's Gates slang-whangers. Bill Sykes bullies, 
frail feminines, doctors, lawyers, merchants and 
thieves, walking, driving or jammed in or on 
busses all plastered over with ads of food, cloth- 
ing, or drink so that the stranger can hardly 
read the name of his destination. 

East End is London's "hub of hell," a "Bridge 
of Sighs" over which helpless misery travels 
whither God only knows. I went with police es- 



LONDON AND ITS SIGHTS. 309 

cort and needed it more than in any other slum- 
ming tour I had ever made. Gin shops, girls and 
old women drunk, men's gambling hells and 
prostitutes' pandemonium ! Oh the wretchedness, 
poverty, disease, squalor, little men and women 
with souls already filled with graves from which 
sad skeletons rose; all those and more, not sim- 
ply to wonder at and weep over but to work for 
as London does, giving more in charity in pro- 
portion to its population than any other city on 
the continent. 

In his gospel for the poor, Charles H. Spur- 
^eon, the great benefactor and philanthropist, 
England's real "Prime Minister," found that, 
"the way to God is by the road of man." 

London takes great pride in her palaces and 
parks; St. James' park with foliage and lake for 
saints and sinner; Kensington gardens '*with 
plants, walks and trees, where without any pro- 
hibitory clause you may go to grass like Nebu- 
chadnezzar; Hyde Park, best of all, with its fine 
gateways and marble arch intended as a monu- 
ment to Nelson, and grass, flowers, trees. Ser- 
pentine Lake, and Rotten Row, alive with riders 
and walks filled with people of all climes and 
conditions who in fashion and beauty come in 
crowds. 

In London, as in Paris, you may find any kind 



310 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

of pleasure you please; concert halls, dance 
houses, circuses, chambers of horrors, theaters 
of drama and farce and all kinds of variety 
shows far removed in spirit from the time when 
holy play and representations of miracles were 
performed. English bar maids are greatly and 
grossly in evidence. London seems to have the 
unique distinction of having thousands of these 
girls who "make destruction please;" girls who 
will ogle, flirt, tell off-color stories, drink 
ale familiarly and profusely with you and prove 
how much worse a bad woman is than a bad 
man because she falls from a greater height. 

The National Gallery of painting on Trafalgar 
Square possesses a fine exhibit. I recognized 
specimens by the old masters whom I had been 
introduced to in Italy and I further met the 
bestft)f the English school. The Turner collec- 
tion is superb. What an artist, subject and 
treatment ! I saw his Venetian scenes with their 
rose, white, emerald, and sapphire, and admired 
his love of brilliant color and light which made 
him matchless. To think any one should say, 
"Turner's pictures look like a tortoise-shell cat 
having a fit on a platter of tomatoes." 

One of the most striking things is a London 
Sunday; Babel is then quiet, shops are shut, 
streets deserted, trains and busses run at longer 



LONDON AND ITS SIGHTS. 311 

intervals, most of the restaurants are closed, 
and your ears are not bombarded with "morn- 
ing paper," The churches are full of worship- 
pers; royalty doesn't attend church very much, 
and then privately, but the many go; some to 
Ritualistic and others to Dissenting churches, 
in both of which one finds the spirit of rever- 
ence, and obedience for law, human and divine, 
which we seem to lack in America. 

England isn't as much on church architecture 
as Italy ; St. Paul's is imposing for strength and 
simplicity, but without and within it is a great 
disappointment. The fine dome leads you to 
expect marbles, mosaics, altars and windows 
like the cathedrals of the conitinent, but you see 
dust, fog, grimy walls and semi-nude memorial 
statues of Dr. Johnson and other grave celebri- 
ties. I saw the fine thought and epitaph con- 
cerning the architect, Christopher Wren: "If 
you seek his monument look around you." If 
Wren's plans had been carried out for St. Paul's 
interior decoration, it would have been far bet- 
ter for him and us. I don't suppose Nelson and 
the Duke of Wellington, who lie here, care 
very much about their aesthetic surroundings, 
but when it comes to Sir Joshua Reynolds and 
J. M. Turner, those great artists, it seems to me 
they would "kick" if they could. 

Westminster Abbey is far different, and I 



312 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

can't just see why Heine gave the sexton a shil- 
ling and said he would have given him more 
if the "collection" had been more complete. Re- 
call its age back into looo, its splendid Gothic 
architecture, aisles and Rose windows, its power- 
ful memories, and would you refuse a bust there 
if they paid for it and insisted on your having it? 
It is a pile of "mournful magnificence," but it 
attracted me many times with its service, music, 
coronation-chair, shrines, sepulchres, effigies, 
inscriptions of kings, heroes, statesmen, philan- 
thropists and poets, including our own Longfel- 
low. The late Dean Stanley had reason to value 
the abbey and regard it as "a religious national 
and liberal institution." Such it is, and I'd like 
to try my hand at a worthy description of this 
historic pile had not Washington Irving already 
done it. 

Because Mr. Wren's plans were not adopted 
in laying out the streets of London after the 
big fire, they outrival Boston; but this makes 
them more interesting in a way, for like Mi- 
cawber you are always expecting something to 
"turn up" and you find yourself turned at the 
wrong place. 

I strolled through swell Regent and Oxford 
streets, peeked in Piccadilly, promenaded in 
Pall Mall, bought a shirt in Thread-needle, took 



LONDON AND ITS SIGHTS. 313 

in Ludgate's circus and lounged on Thames 
Embankment and Victoria street. Since Lon- 
don has one thousand miles of streets, there 
were some I didn't have time to visit. 

I did drive to Lambeth Palace, along the Vic- 
toria Embankment with its walk, trees, and ob- 
elisk, and by the side of the Thames more sig- 
nificant today than Nile and Tiber in its wide 
influence. I visited the houses of parliament, 
a pile of fine Gothic extending one thousand 
feet along the river's bank. Bright, Disraeli, 
Gladstone! What names to conjure with! Of 
more interest to me than the Victoria tower, 
through which the queen entered parliament, 
or Clock tower with its bar steel minute-hand 
twelve feet long, or Big Ben with its thirteen 
ton bell bang, is the idea of parliament, the dec- 
laration of the truth, not only of the divine right 
of kings but the right divine of the people. 

Of the many places of interest, I can only sug- 
gest a few, though I didn't think I ever felt like 
the traveler who said, "I am sorry I didn't go 
with you, for then I might have said, I'd been 
there." Trafalgar Square is to London what 
Place de la Concord is to Paris. The Nelson 
Column, granite fluted, flanked by Landseer's big 
bronze lions, rises proudly above the London the 
great admiral made secure in 1805, when he' 



314 TMCKg OF A TENDERFOOf . 

blocked the little game of France and Spain who 
were attempting to invade England. His words, 
"England expects every man to do his duty," still 
thrill every Britisher's heart. 

Leaving this statue and that of the soldierly 
Gordon, I drove to the Albert Memorial, which 
cabby in formed me was "a statue as is a stat- 
ue." Albert is remembered as the good Prince 
Consort of Victoria. Theirs was a love match 
and marriage. He was a man who loved Eng- 
land, and whom England cherishes as good and 
great. He was devoted to art and science and 
with John Bright was a firm upholder of the 
Union cause in the Civil war. Granite steps 
lead to a pedestal whose corners have statuary 
of Europe, Asia, and Africa; to a base with one 
hundred and sixty-nine life-size marble statues 
of the great geniuses from the world's earliest 
history; one hundred and seventy-five feet above 
rises the glittering Gothic spire, surmounted by 
a golden cross, while under this canopy stands 
a gilded bronze statue of Prince Albert, fifteen 
feet high. 

One day after an underground ride in a cham- 
ber of horrors with smoke, soot and smell that 
made Dante's hell a desirable station to change 
cars at, I visited the famous London Tower; it's 
the English Bastile, covers twenty-six acres and 



LONDON AND ITS SIGHTS. 315 

many more broken hearts, and goes back to 
William the Conqueror's time, 1078; its White, 
Bloody, Middle, Bell and Beauchamp towers 
"could a tale unfold" which would make you 
think the furnace fire had gone out in January. 
It is full of the story of despair and death; the 
names Wallace, Clarence, Edward V. and Rich- 
ard, Katharine and Raleigh stretch to the "crack 
of doom." I entered some of these cells, read 
the names, inscriptions and verses on the wall 
and thanked God I was a free American. The 
guide led me to the Traitors' gate by the river 
with memories of Sir Thomas More and Anne 
Boleyn, whom Henry VIII. killed that he 
might marry Jane Seymour. Then I wandered 
to the armory which had been a royal 
residence in Elizabeth's time, but was now filled 
with arms enough to fit an army and with tro- 
phies from the world over where British valor 
had won ; afterwards to the treasury room with 
crowns, jewels and royal insignia and dining- 
room outfits of gold. These are all guarded by 
the big "beef eaters" — they looked watchful and 
worshipful. 
. The Bank of England looks like a Gibraltar, 
stone, massive, one-storied, windowless, and 
covers four acres. It has been compared to the 
"central dynamo of the financial world;" that 



3i6 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

sounds well, and yet nations sometimes go down 
the financial toboggan slide of supremacy. 
American money and credit are pretty good 
here. We have something to say about iron, 
steel, tin, tools, ships and electric traction. Think 
of it! John Bull looking at an Elgin watch early 
in the morning, shaving with Yankee soap, eat- 
ing bread made of Minneapolis flour, reading a 
paper printed on an American machine, working 
before a Michigan-made desk, smoking Virginia 
cheroots, drinking an American cocktail, read- 
ing an American book or attending a musical 
concert where Nordica is the star. 

It is only natural that an Englishman should 
believe there is nothing above him and that 
other nations need heaven as the only thing 
which can console them for not being born Eng- 
lishmen. This satisfied and stolid manner has 
led to cutting cartoon and criticism. Brunetiere, 
the French critic, says: "The dazzhng fact of 
America's history in the nineteenth century is 
the continuous progress of the Democratic ideal, 
and this ideal is the contradiction of the Anglo- 
Saxon ideal." Lawrence Sterne said that an 
Englishman did not know whether to take or 
reject the "sweet or sour" of a compliment, while 
our inimitable Mr. Dooley affirms that in an 
American joke you laugh just after the point if 



LONDON AND ITS SIGHTS. 317 

at all, but in the English you laugh either before 
the point or after the decease of the joker. 

Be this and more, as it may, the English have 
fine traits in the fibre of their individual and 
national life; home is the Englishman's castle 
on the husband's part, and the good wife makes 
it the conservatory of the beautiful. Their boys 
and girls are loving and obedient, and with sim- 
ple food, pleasures, and exercise, make noble 
men and women; 'their hospitality is proverbial 
and when you are invited to it it means much. 

I think it was Mr. Smelfungus who called the 
Pantheon a "Huge cockpit;" in no such spirit 
have I recorded my impressoin of London which 
I greatly admire for its government, streets, 
spacious parks, wonderful museums, historic and 
literary memory. We Americans have many 
points in common with our British relatives in 
respect to business, education and reHgion ; we 
look much alike, talk the same language and 
sing the same national air. I have seen the Lon- 
don John Bull. In appearance he is more than 
a sturdy, fat fellow with round hat, leather 
breeches and red waistcoat ; in character he is 
more than pipe and tankard, guineas and growls, 
protecting or patronizing airs; he is well com- 
pared to his old oak staff "rough outside and 
sound within." 



3i8 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

HISTORIC SPOTS OF ENGLAND. 

We started out with a swinging tallyho that 
shook us up like dice in a box. We had four 
good EngHsh horses, a horn blowing footman 
to toot asthmatic echoes and a driver who knew 
how to size up his passengers. As usual I 
found it paid to be on good terms and make 
friends with the coachman. It was a jolly party 
of six. Months of travel had jolted them into a 
social disposition. 

Gulliver's account of his "Travels" shows a 
tendency to exaggerated statement, but if Mr. 
G. had been with us he couldn't have said too 
much for it was a Mark Tapley crowd. 

Paris is not France and London is not Eng- 
land; from the rush of the city we came to the 
repose of the country; if London had been an 
open book of history and literature, the country 
was a scenic panaroma. For a week we saw 
vine-clad cottages and little inns with pretty 
milk and bar-maids; here cattle in the greenest 
of pastures and there ivy clad churches and tow- 
ers; on all sides hawthorn hedges, flower gar- 
dens, corn fields, oaks and elms fresh and green. 
Now at last I learned the meaning of England's 
raw fog and mist and what they were good for. 



HISTORIC SPOTS OF ENGLAND. 319 

Windsor is twenty-six miles from London; I 
enjoyed this old 'town with its "Garter's Inn" 
where old Jack Falstaff used to jolly the "Merry 
Wives of Windsor." There is a royal forest of 
kingly oaks, and a "Keep," where the youthful 
James I. was imprisoned during which time he 
wrote, "King's Quair," and made love over the 
garden wall to the girl he afterwards married 
when set free. But the main thing is the castle, 
that residence of royalty situated on the big 
mound where the Round Tower stands. This 
was the place where King Arthur and his pals 
used to sit up nights and booze the happy hours 
away. St. George's Chapel invited us with its 
royal mausoleum, its famous wrought iron work 
and library with manuscripts by Da Vinci and 
historic portraits by Holbein. "Wolsey's Tomb 
House" is a sad commentary on human great- 
ness. The poor cardinal was turned down in his 
life, and the fine tomb he made for the repose 
of his bones had the bronze torn off and was 
looted and sold by the commonwealth; even the 
naked black marble was removed to St. Paul's 
as a monument for Nelson's grave; a case of 
"Robbing Peter to pay Paul." 

A hungry crowd of us rode a mile and crossed 
the bridge to Eton, where classic and practical 
knowledge is dished out to boys British born or 



320 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

subjects. Lamb has told us of this school in his 
quaint essay. Lamb, to use a mixed figure, was 
a rare bird ; his delicate feeling, humor and 
quaintness stamp him as one of England's most 
delightful essayists. 

Now we canter to Canterbury. Our coach 
was like a shuttle weaving green grass and blue 
sky with strands of sunshine into a ribbon and 
laying it along the fine roads over which we 
traveled. The city is on an old Roman site; his- 
toric for its monastery of St. Augustine, schools, 
cathedral where Thomas a'Becket was martyred, 
and his miracle-working grave. This was the 
town, I think, where Watt Tyler rose up and 
made a center rush ; best of all known as the 
place where Chaucer tells his "Tales" of the 
fashionable and pious people who came here on 
a pilgrimage; his stories are daguerreotypes of 
the society of his day. 

A ride through hills, watered valleys and 
'groves brings us to Oxford, the center of educa- 
tion. I had visited other temples of learning, 
notably the Little Red School House of America, 
Heliopolis in Egypt, and Plato's academy in Ath- 
ens, but here I was all surrounded like "o" in 
Oxford itself. I think I counted two dozen 
colleges and several ladies' seminaries. For a 
number of centuries it has been a garden of wis- 



HISTORIC SPOTS OF ENGLAND. 321 

dom where human bees have hived its sv^eets. 
The surroundings and atmosphere are of men 
who put genius above gold and felt there was 
something bigger in this world that a large 
bank account. Of interest is the famed Bodlein 
library, dating from 1602 with a donated copy of 
every book printed in the kingdom. I think this 
is a good way to collect a library. The Claren- 
don press is an imprimatur to many of our 
books. A building of great interest contains 
sketches of Angelo and Raphael, a manuscript 
of Virgil, the first Mainz Bible and an Egyptian 
edition of Plato. As a relief to all this classic 
lore I recalled "Folly Bridge," saw the site 
where King Alfred lived a thousand years ago, 
and laughed at the thought of Crown Inn, where 
Shakespeare used to stop on his way to London, 
having left his dear Ann Hathaway at home with 
the children. 

We arrived at Stratford the literary Mecca of 
the world's pilgrimage on a rainy day, but it was 
suggestive of the tears of joy which millions 
shed on Shakespeare's grave to keep his mem- 
ory green. We put up at the Red Horse hotel, 
where Irving wrote his suggestive sketch. Af- 
ter a big dinner we viewed Child's American 
memorial fountain with its Gothic tower and 
clock, then strolled across the fields to Ann 



322 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

Hathaway's cottage to see where Shakespeare 
had played Romeo tO' the original Juliet. The 
Memorial library is filled with thousands of vol- 
umes of the dramatist and his commentators, 
and there is a fine theater auditorium where his 
plays are yearly acted. Of course, we went to 
his humble home with its low-ceiling room all 
scribbled over with autographs of Byron, Dick- 
ens, Scott and some other less illustrious people. 
At his school the guide pointed out the place 
where Shakespeare used to sit, where he studied 
and where he was flogged. One of the most in- 
teresting points was Trinity church, by clear- 
flowing Avon. It made a pretty picture, with 
its old elms, gray tombstones and half-faded in- 
scriptions. I slowly entered the building, 
walked down its cross-formed aisles, which the 
sexton told me inclined at an angle to "represent 
the bended head of the Saviour." I admired the 
memorial windows, and like steel to a magnet, 
was drawn to Shakespeare's bust and the slab 
beneath, with its quaint inscription and request 
for rest, which every "good friend" continues to 
respect for his and "Jesus' sake." 

Who was Shakespeare, anyhow? He has 
been dead so long he cannot speak for himself, 
and various answers have been given. Some 
think he was a combination of boyish poetry and 



HISTORIC SPOTS OF ENGLAND. 2>2i 

passion, prose and poaching; others hold he was 
a mad genius who married his wife by a kind of 
poet's Hcense, and resembled Horace Greeley in 
clothes and penmanship; others maintain him 
to be the myriad-minded man who "possessed a 
capacity for universal knowledge without the 
universal experience." Ignatius Donnelly 
thought that Bacon wrote Shakespeare, while a 
recent writer declared that Shakespeare wrote 
Bacon, and there it is. Well, we have the im- 
mortal works. How much was called out of 
night to everlasting day! The world has set up 
a tablet in its heart and written thereon the trib- 
ute of love and respect. 

Stoke-Pogis is a prosy place but immortally 
renowned on account of Gray and his "Elegy." 
I saw the writer's cottage with its flowers and 
foliage. I wandered to the church with its "ivy- 
mantled tower," and looked at the grave beneath 
the Oriel window. He was a poet who more 
than the warrior Wellington left a deathless fame 
in hearts by verses whose sentiment will con- 
tinue to sing through all eternity. Seven years 
is a pretty long time to work ofif and on on one 
poem, but he did and the end justifies the means. 
I wonder if seven times seven would enable an- 
other man to write its equal? 

Warwick is eight miles from Stratford and 



324 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

the road which had led through pretty scenery at 
last came to bedrock, covered with ivy and trees. 
In imagination the old Knights and their Ladies 
once more came out to meet us and stood and 
sat beside us. Here are towers of Caesar, and 
the gateways of Guy and Sundial. The cedars 
of Lebanon, which you see, are grown from 
seed which the brave earl brought from 
Palestine. The castle looks bold and frowning 
as William the Conquerer who stopped here on 
his first campaign. Windsor castle is a fine feu- 
dal mansion; its reception room is decorated 
with antlers, axes and armor ; its drawing room 
is filled with bronzes, mosaics and historic paint- 
ings. These were all of interest to me but I had 
a woman's curiosity to see Beauchamp chapel of 
stone, oak, stained glass, and its armor-clad 
sculptured dead. Here continue to lie the re- 
mains of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, that 
admirer of women who was Queen Elizabeth's 
favorite. She thought so much of him that she 
gave him Kenilworth castle for a Christmas gift. 
The earl spent barrels of money on it, had it 
guarded by thousands of soldiers, and ran a 
lusher banquet hall which was the scene of many 
a revel. It was presto change when Cromwell 
came and knocked it into a cocked hat. Today 
it is a beautiful ivy-covered red sandstone ruin. 



HISTORIC SPOTS OF ENGLAND. 325 

Sir Walter Scott visited it, took notes and gave 
us his Kenilworth. How the vision of the past 
rises at the pen of this Wizard of the North. 
The ruins are as empty as a church contribution 
box, but he has made them full of interest. 

Chester: "Charge, Chester, charge!" and you 
may believe they did, for it was Derby Day and 
an American horse had won the race. An Eng- 
lishman wanted to bet with me. I told him it 
was against the ethics of my profession. He 
begged my "pawdon," and said that he would 
give half of what he won to the collection tha 
following Sunday. I'm sure he lost. 

Chester is an old Roman town on the river 
Dee, There are two miles of circular stone 
walls, forty feet high in places, and wide enough 
for a promenade. Briton, Saxon and Dane have 
in turn occupied this place. You find good 
old timber houses which have come down from 
the seventeenth century, while some modern 
buildings are made to imitate them in their crazy 
looking style. There is a curious covered side- 
walk following the old Roman thoroughfare and 
four streets at right angles, making roads of con- 
tinuous galleries over and under which the lean- 
ing houses line the streets. Antiquarians have 
found many coins, altars and Roman inscrip- 
tions. On a spot called the "Wishing Steps" I 



326 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

loitered and lounged wishing that I could "strike 
it rich." 

At last we reached Birkenhead on the Mersey 
river, opposite Liverpool. It has mammoth 
floating docks and big ferries. There was 
something that struck me more forcibly than all 
this and that was the first good EngHsh argu- 
ment I had heard for the Boer war. There were 
a lot of lazy men standing around to whom an 
old lady said, "The war in Africa would be a 
good thing if you could just be sent over there 
and do something." 

Liverpool at last, or Whirlpool, it seemed to 
me that night, and Hotel Adelphi was a friend in 
need and deed. Next morning we met some of 
the party whom we had been separated from for 
weeks. After a breakfast washed down by a 
cup of English tea we drove through shaded 
boulevards to Princes' park. The most won- 
derful docks in the world line the shore for a dis- 
tance of seven miles. We had time to look in 
the Old Town Hall, St. George's hall, built in 
the form of a Greek temple, and to attend the 
Walker gallery filled with art treasures and 
where, at this time, Munckacksy's "Ecce Homo" 
was on exhibition. The "Grand Old Man" was 
born in this town, and our distinguished novel- 
ist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was United States 



GOOD OLD YANKEELAND. ^2^ 

consul here from '53 to '57. We took pride in 
this and wrote our name in a black and not Scar- 
let Letter. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
GOOD OLD YANKEELAND. 

I had planned a call at Blarney Castle and a 
visit to an old friend in Edinburgh, but it was 
too late. Time, tide and ship wait for no man, 
and I consoled myself by saying Ireland and 
Scotland were near by and I could run over 
there any time. 

It was Thursday, May 10, and we were to 
leave Old England on the New England. The 
dock was filled with people, and we were glad to 
start for home. 

Fifty little orphans in line started down the 
gang-plank, one fell down and then there were 
forty-nine on top of him, but I rescued him and 
laughter filled the dimpled faces which had been 
full of tears. 

All ashore, a signal, a rush of steam, and we 
were off. As the city and shore disappeared, 
my eyes splashed with water salter than the sea, 
and in the spirit of Charles Dickens, with the 



328 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

words of his Tiny Tim, I said, "God bless us all 
every one." 

After dinner that night I watched the steerage 
passengers fiddle and dance and knew that joy 
was no respecter of persons. Later in the grand 
salon, after promenade, music and talk, a lady 
passenger drank the toast, "Bon Voyage," in a 
glass of hot lemonade, which shivered in her 
hands and spattered over all. She laughed and 
said it was a good sign, but I was a little skep- 
tical, so I went to my room, read "Double 
Thread," and prepared for rough weather by 
sewing buttons on my storm coat and pants. 
This done I stuck the needle into my chum. Pro- 
fessor P., who was an organist at home, and lay 
snoring in a way equal to three reed stops plus 
his mouth for a trombone. 

Next morning we anchored at Queenstown 
and, begorry, the auld Emerald isle was just be- 
fore us. We didn't land but some of the natives 
boarded our ship and sold us beads, lace and 
black thorn canes. These salesmen were jolly 
Irish beggars and the women recalled Moore's 
lines: "On she went and her maiden smile in 
safety lighted her round the green isle." 

Life on the ocean wave is calm and restful. 
Every one wears easy clothes and manners. You 
eat, drink, doze, read, chat, promenade, play po- 



GOOD OLD YANKEELAND. 329 

ker, ring-toss or shuffle board, recount expe- 
riences or swap stories. One evening I played 
the Wedding March for a couple who had cele- 
brated their anniversary on board. Later I went 
to an orphans' concert in the aft cabin where 
men and women played and sang in all keys and 
none. It seems I was somewhat of a prophet, 
for one morning I began to feel a Httle "home- 
sick" and came on deck without a shave or a 
necktie. I would have gone by land if I could, 
but "Mr. Captain would not stop the boat and let 
me off and walk." Sunday I was convalescent 
and preached from the Traveler's Psalm, "He 
maketh the storm a calm so that the waves there- 
of are still; then are they glad because they be 
quiet." 

It was "good" Friday indeed when the pilot 
whom we had picked up brought us into the 
harbor. Christopher C. guessed his way across 
the ocean but we came straight as a Kentucky 
colonel to a Louisville bar. There is no doubt 
that the greatest genii in the Arabian Nights 
was the steam that came out of the little bottle 
and took shape. We slowed up in the bay be- 
cause of the fog. Later the wharf appeared and 
in my attempts to attract the attention of a 
friend, I slipped and fell on the wet boards but 
the old flag that I carried didn't mop the deck. 



330 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

No matter what your religion or politics may 
be you are always a free-trader when you come 
to shore. A government official was on to his 
job and mine. I offered him good advice and 
assistance which he ignored politely, as he pro- 
ceeded to play Vesuvius with my picked up plun- 
der. I had several narrow escapes, but he let 
me off free. He was a gentleman. Home 
again ! I was so intoxicated with its atmosphere 
and patriotism that I didn't know whether I 
walked or flew over Boston Common and Bunk- 
er Mill monument. My relative, "Little Nell," 
tried to sober me but I only subsided when I 
saw a burly policeman who eyed me suspiciously 
and acted as if he would like to run me in. 

I came back to America with a conviction 
which I would write in capital letters: That 
there is no land in all the world like ours in re- 
spect to its domain, history and citizenship; that 
for unity, wages, education and religion, we 
are "foremost in the files of time." I had rather 
be born poor here than a prince anywhere else. 

Travel had always been a fruit of "restless 
poison" to my blood!, whether I was in the gla- 
ciers of Alaska, palms of Mexico, granite of 
Massachusetts or gold of California, I believe 
man was made to live a. great while in a little 



GOOD OLD YANKEELAND. 331 

while if he only knew how, and no man can travel 
more and know less than he did before. 

It is one thing to read, hear and see pictures 
of places, it is another to realize their history, 
and be with Virgil's hero a part of what you 
hcxve seen. Tennyson told Bayard Taylor, "A 
book of travels may be so written that it shall be 
as immortal as a great poem." 

The successful tourist should know how to see, 
listen and describe. I have tried to do all three, 
with what success or failure my readers now 
know. I have learned some things ; this is a big 
world and at best one's soul only dips its wings 
into the ocean of God's beauty. All the violets 
do not grow in one place and God's untranslated 
gospel of love is found everywhere. Go where 
you may, you will always find eyes which flash 
forth intelligence and patriotism. 

I may forget all the trip cost, of money, time, 
energy, hardship and patience, but I know that 
in spite of who, what and where I may be. Mem- 
ory "Will bring to mind the light of other days 
around me;" Egypt with its antiquity; Palestine 
with its sanctity; Asia with its luxury; Greece 
with its beauty; Pompeii with its desolation; Ita- 
ly with its art; Switzerland with its scenery; Ger- 
many with its music; Holland and Belgium with 
their heroism; France with its beauty; England 



332 TRACKS OF A TENDERFOOT. 

with its history. Of these places and peoples 
visited I feel: 

Oh, the years I lost before I knew you, Love! 

Oh, the hills I climbed and came not to you. Love! 

Ah, who shall render unto us to make us glad. 

The things which for and of each other's sake 

We might have had ? 



1B02 



